


On the Shoulders of Giants

by adozenbottledtales



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Ace!Bucky, Anxiety, Bucky is ace, Clint Barton died for the soul stone, Do not read this if you have not seen endgame!, F/M, Grief, MAJOR SPOILERS FOR ENDGAME!, Morgan is a genius, Natascha is still alive, Watch endgame and then come back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-01-31 15:20:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 37,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18593974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adozenbottledtales/pseuds/adozenbottledtales
Summary: Tony Stark is dead. Earth has lost its best defender. And those that loved him stay behind.Bucky is not one of them. He can count on one hand the number of interactions he had with the genius and they’ve left him regretting. He finds himself drawn back to the small house by the river again and again, towards the grieving Pepper Potts and the small Morgan, and the empty hole left behind.





	1. Morgan

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a whole lot of fluff to attempt to distract myself from the gaping wounds Endgame left me with. Not sure if this will really go anywhere.

The first time Bucky walks up to the house alone, he wants to turn every step of the way. He feels dirty again, he feels like blood and rust, like he’s walking into another mans home, another mans life, without asking, liked he used. He feels like he used to and it makes everything inside him want to turn inside out. It’s such a fucking beautiful day and the house looks like life, like home and hearth and he feels like a snake, he feels like the match to set it all on fire. And that’s not what he wanted to do, he wanted to pay his respects, not this, now whatever this is.

 So he turns around and heads back. He didn’t know what he was thinking. It’s not his place to be here, not after everything the man has done for him.

 That’s when he hears the scream.

 It’s small and spans the entire house and high pitched and it makes his heart drop. He’s in motion before he can even think. His body is working so much better than his mind, he’s running around the house, holding on to the railing of the porch to keep his momentum, following the sound.

 He spots the source as soon as he can see the river and he’s moving while he can hear the door slam open behind him.

 “Morgan!” Peppers voice expresses how he’s feeling as he’s running into the water, after the little raft that’s picking up speed. He can barely hear the “Barnes?” that comes after, his head is under water and he’s riding the stream towards the raft. He can practically feel Morgan’s fear through the sticks and the yarn and he’s so fucking glad for everything that is wrong with him because it makes him swim faster, it makes him get to Morgan faster. They’re not even past the boundaries of the piece of land that the Starks on when he manages to get a hold of the raft.

 “White Wolf!” Morgan has spotted him, has spotted his warm hand holding on to the raft and she holds on to him. He picks her up and holds her head above water, paddling towards the river bank while the raft is whipped down stream.

 “Morgan, are you okay baby?” Pepper is there when they reach land and Morgan runs into her arms. Neither of them care that Morgan is soaked and Bucky can feel the _thank god not again_ that’s radiating off them. Morgan holds on to her mom for dear life and Pepper does to, shaking with fear or sobs, Bucky can’t quite tell.

 He’s about to leave, he’s uncomfortable, he shouldn’t be here, he doesn’t know what to say, when Pepper looks up and her eyes find his, rooting him to the spot. Bucky noticed that already before the funeral and he really noticed at the funeral just how commanding Pepper can be. How much she owns the space around her and all the people in it.

 “Mr. Barnes,” she says and her voice almost isn’t shaking anymore, is almost all business. Stark has really found his match with this one. Had. Had found. Fuck. Morgan clings to her mothers hand, shaking from the cold, the expression on her face so much more warm and inviting that the careful guardedness in her mothers eyes.

 “Thank you for your help, Mr. Barnes. What gives me the honour of your visit?” Well fuck. That’s really the one question he doesn’t know how to answer. But he’s been trained for this, lifetimes ago this was a skill he needed, so the words find his tongue despite him.

 “I wanted to speak to you about some files Mr. Stark had on me,” he says and his voice sounds like the rocks at the bottom of the river.

 “Mom, I’m cold.” Pepper’s eyes linger on him for a heartbeat, then her face melts and she looks down at Morgan.

 “Let’s get you inside sweetie, before you catch a cold.” She looks back at him and Bucky can tell she’s considering whether to kick him out.

 “Come inside, Mr. Barnes, we can talk there.” She says it with a smile but Bucky knows that smile and it’s not hers. It’s the press smile, the one that the tabloids get when they want to know what it’s like to be a rich widow and the next Iron Man. But he gets it, he’s not supposed to be here, so he follows her and feels like a snake.

 “Thank you,” he says after she’s back in the living room and Morgan is changed and learned her lesson.

 “Thank you, Mr. White Wolf. Mom asks if you want coffee,” she announces as she climbs the couch he’s been placed on.

 “No thank you,” Bucky says to Pepper and he’s not even hurt by her professional reserve as she sits down opposite to him.

 “Now, what files can I help you with,” asks the CEO of Stark Insdustries and Bucky knew he shouldn’t have come here, he was having delusions and this is stupid, he should get out of here.

 “It’s nothing important really, it can wait. You are clearly busy right now and Morgan needs your time more than I do. I’ll call back some other time,” he says and sometimes he’s glad he can lie like he can breathe. He stands and turns to go, but Morgan catches his metal thumb and he can feel the tug on his shoulder so he stops.

 “No, don’t leave yet. Mom, can the White Wolf stay for dinner?” Bucky is already getting ready to say no, thank you, some other time maybe, because Morgan’s hair is still wet and Pepper is hurt and on guard and he hates doing that, but Pepper is faster.

 “Sure, honey. You go invite him.” She’s looking right at him, and behind the motherly smile on her lips and the guarded professionalism in her eyes, there is something else. Curiosity? Bucky doesn’t know, he hasn’t done this for long enough to know, hell, he can barely read Steve and Steve doesn’t seem to want him to. So Morgan climbs up to the arm of the couch so she is at least at chest height with him and catches him with her eyes like her mother does.

 “Would you like to stay for dinner with us, Mr. Wolf? We’re having…” She turns around, still holding on to his arm for stability. “Mom, what are we having.” Bucky hurts when he sees the warmth with which Pepper looks at her daughter because he knows that she’s hurting.

 “Potato Pancakes,” she says softly and Morgan spins back around.

 “We’re having potato pancakes,” Morgan announces and Bucky smiles, simply because it’s impossible not to.

 “I’d love to stay,” he murmurs to Morgan and checks with Pepper if that was the right answer. She’s getting up and Morgan is also grinning with glee, so he thinks it was.

 Dinner feels more silent than it is. Morgan is constantly talking, every now and then leaving room for Pepper and Bucky, but both of the adults can feel the silence between them. Bucky eventually stops looking to Pepper for permission to answer Morgans question and just does and it’s the best conversation he’s had in forever.

“Have you ever had a raft?” 

“As a kid? Yeah, several. Me and my brothers and Steve would build them in the summer. Some went pretty far.”

“How many brothers did you have?”

“Two brothers, although I usually count Steve in, so three and a sister.”

“Did you make rafts ever summer?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Were they any good?” Bucky chuckles and refused to remember what this kind of questioning feels like.

“Some, yeah. We learned stuff every time and we could make rafts that could carry all four of us.”

“Can you make one with me?” Bucky can feel Pepper tense but Morgan doesn’t so he pretends not to either.

“Sure, but not on the river, that’s dangerous. I’ll first show you how to dig a basin so we can launch the raft somewhere where there isn’t a current.”

“What’s a current?”

And it goes on like that. The rest of dinner is Bucky explaining how a river works to Morgan and Morgan asking questions that he can and sometimes can’t answer. They’re getting more and more into physics and hydraulics and Bucky is out of his depth when Pepper saves him.

“That’s enough for now, Baby, it’s bedtime for you. The White Wolf can answer more questions tomorrow.” Bucky chuckles to hide how much he’s really not able to answer questions like why do rivers curve like snakes. “I’ll be right back,” Pepper smiles and plucks up Morgan from her chair, carrying her out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Bucky has to smile and for a second he almost can’t feel the empty presence in the house. Then its back and he’s almost about to leave, just vanish from this other mans home when Pepper comes back, smiling a little smile to herself that Bucky pretends not to see.

She comes back into the kitchen and takes out wine glasses, filling them and setting them down in front of him and herself before she settles back into her chair. She’s a little lost in the way the light catches in the glass and in the way her house if just a little empty, but then she catches herself and looks up.

“So, Mr. Barnes.” She pauses and Bucky wonders whether she’ll stay in the moment or come back to business. She’s wondering the same and Bucky waits until she decides. “How come Morgan and you are so close?” Bucky holds on to the glass in his hands and doesn’t look at her.

“Uhm, at the funeral. She showed me how to braid daisy crowns.” Pepper tenses up and all of her curls around the big gaping wound in her chest and Bucky hates himself for having brought it up. He doesn’t know what to do when someone is hurt like that, he doesn’t know how that works, so he just keeps talking, softly, like talking down an animal.

“She was showing me how to braid them in a way that would work with this,” he lifts up his metal arm, the silver catching the light a little, “without breaking the stems. She kept asking questions and it was a fun conversation until your security guard picked her up.”

“Happy,” Pepper whispers and Bucky remembers the name, remembers being introduced.

“Happy, yeah.”

“And you said you needed some files, right?” Bucky admires how Pepper just functions, through everything and despite everything, just functions. He wonders how she does that now on her own. He wonder what she does now other than functioning. Bucky holds on to what’s left of his heart and the glass and tries to tell the truth.

“Not really. I’m not really sure anymore why I’m here.” Pepper doesn’t say anything, just stares and wonders so Bucky keeps talking.

“I wanted to see Morgan again and Steve said I should just try it and it just felt really wrong. I just hear Morgan scream, I was about to leave, but then I heard her. I’m sorry for coming,” he admits and Pepper smiles. It’s not her press smile, its one of hers, no matter how distant, and Bucky is proud of that.

“Don’t be,” she says and now its his turn to stare in surprise. “She likes you, and Tony…” She breathes and continues and her voice quivers just a little. “I don’t think Tony ever hated you.” She looks up at him and right there she can see everything that he was afraid of. She sees it and smiles and its a kind smile. Bucky hates that this woman who can be kind to him after everything has been hurt like this. “So, uhm, if you want to build a raft with her, that’s okay. Just, you know. Be careful. She’s… she’s, uhm….” Pepper closes her mouth and concentrates on breathing so nothing will break more than it already has. Bucky hates this.

“I get it. If you want to have me back, I’d love that. I’ll make sure nothing happens.” Pepper smiles and she’s doing so well with not crying that Bucky doesn’t want to test her anymore. He gets up.

“Thank you for the wine. And the dinner. And your time. Can I call you?” Pepper bites her lip in a last effort to keep her face and smile and nods.

“Good night then. I’m sorry. Good night.” And like that he’s gone. Pepper is alone, crying in the kitchen. And Bucky is walking back nowhere, feeling miserable but also smiling like an idiot, Morgans questions stuck in his head.


	2. Rafts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky picks up Morgan from school and they start on their raft.

The next time Bucky sees Morgan he’s armed with answers. It’s been a few days and its taken that long for him to call Pepper. He doesn’t want to disturb, he doesn’t want to break things again and fuck this is so fragile.

“Call her, Buck. Pepper won’t bite.” Bucky sighs and rubs his face. He’s sort of used to Steve being an old man, hell, why the fuck not, this isn’t the weirdest thing that’s happened. At least Steve looks old. Bucky just feels old. He’s tired and weary and he doesn’t want to break into this fragile thing that’s not his.

So Bucky texts Pepper. He hates calling, it kicks loose instincts and patterns that he doesn’t want to remember he has, so he texts. Pepper writes back immediately and Bucky can tell from the phrasing alone that Friday is the one writing. 

“She says I can pick Morgan up from school,” Bucky reports incredulously and Steve chuckles.

“See. Come on Buck, this is a good chance. I took mine, don’t tell me you don’t have the guts to do the same.” Bucky laughs and it almost covers how nervous he is. He looks at the time on his phone, and the time on Peppers message and gets up.

“Better get walking,” he murmurs and is gone. Steve watches him but loses sight of him between two trees. Bucky never lost that habit, paranoia is hard to lose, and he’s gone in the middle of the day.

Bucky hasn’t bothered getting a ride yet. Shuri has offered, keeps offering, but Bucky keeps saying no. Steve has had his life. Bucky wants that too. And he wants a clean slate. He has is eye on a bike, the one from Steve’s neighbour two houses down, it’s nothing pristine but its something he can fix, but he doesn’t have to money quite yet. So he starts walking.

Bucky spots Morgan in the crowd of children flooding out of the school immediately, and he also sees the three security guard that mill around in the flock of parents waiting for their children to find them. They’re staying just hidden enough for Morgan to miss them, but she’s not looking for them anyway.

It takes him a moment to realize that Pepper must have told her about him and he moves, makes himself visible and her gaze locks onto him. A smile spreads on her little face and she runs over to him.

“White Wolf!” He crouches down and lets her hug him, glancing over at the guards that are watching but not moving. That’s okay. This feels right, it would have been wrong for Pepper to trust him like this.

“Hey there. Your mom said I can pick you up from school and we can walk home together.” She nods.

“I know. She said today would be a good day to build rafts.” Bucky smiles and he’s glad he texted, he’s glad this is happening.

“Did she now? Well, we better get home then.” He loves how easily Morgan can her him, how he doesn’t have to raise his voice and she’ll still understand. “I don’t have a car though. So how about you climb up and get a better view,” he suggest and Morgan climbs up to his shoulders, her feet pressing into his back, her small fingers digging into his shirt and jacket and muscle. He rises and lifts her towards the sky and Morgan plucks a leaf from the oak they’re under.

“So, I did some more reading into rivers,” Bucky starts walking and talking.

“I did too. I asked Mrs. Gerald today about rivers but she didn’t know anything and sent me to the library, and the library didn’t have any good books either. Either they were boring or really really complicated.” Bucky smiles as he walks and he can already tell this is going to be what’s between him and Morgan. He knows what thirst for knowledge and learning sounds like, a few lifetimes ago he sounded like that, and it's a joy hearing it from her mouth.

“So, you were asking about sinks and drag,” he picks up where he had to be saved by Pepper a few days ago and they talk about rivers until they get to theirs.

Bucky has done a lot of things in his life. Most of them bad, some of them good, very few of them normal. And most of those things, those normal little things, the small things that make him happy, those were so long ago he doesn’t really remember what that feels like. So when he’s sitting in the water with Morgan, the heat held off by the trees above them and branches and little models of their future raft surrounding them, it slams into him like a mountain. He’s happy.

He feels guilty about it almost immediately and he does his best to hide it from Morgan. This is Stark’s river. Stark's house. Stark’s daughter. He feels like he’s stealing them. Bucky wants to get up and never come back. He wants to disappear and vanish and become the ghost it's so much easier to be.

“What are you thinking about?” Morgan's voice finds him like light through a storm. He looks back at her and finds that he’s lost his ability to lie.

“About your dad,” he murmurs and his voice is stuck in his throat. He’s robbing a dead man. Morgan’s little face tries to figure him out and he’s almost sorry for her. Little thing that she is trying to figure out the mess that is three lifetimes of him.

“Dad sometimes talked about you,” she says and Bucky freezes. He shouldn’t have come here, he shouldn’t be here, what the fuck was he thinking, befriending a kid who’s grandparents he killed. “He said he wished you weren't gone. He had questions he wanted you to answer.” She pauses and Bucky swallows. Makes sense Stark wouldn’t show his kid his true feelings about him, makes sense. “I also have questions I want you to answer. Does that make me like him?”

Bucky forces himself to smile and not be scared.

“It does, yeah. What questions do you have?”

“Why does the tiger princess call you White Wolf.” Bucky laughs. He wants to hug her, but that would make no sense so he just tries not to cry with relief and answer the fucking question.

“She’s a panther princess,” he starts and pushes the little model raft towards Morgan. “You see how light our skin is. Well, yours is a little darker, you’re running around in the sun all the time. Shuri’s skin is much darker than that, right?” Morgan nods and is busy comparing both their lower arms. “Where she comes from, there is a lot more sun than here. Their skin being darker protects them from the sun. So all of the people that live with her have dark skin. And when I was there, I was the only one with white skin. So she named me White Wolf,” he explains and hopes he didn’t say anything wrong.

“Why not Bucky?” Bucky wondered if all children were this inquisitive. He likes it.

“It didn’t feel right,” he admits and wonders how much he can tell a five year old. But Morgan leaves it there and focuses on other questions instead.

“Why did you live with the panther princess?” She was a quick learner. Bucky wonders what Tony was like as a kid.

“I… I did some bad things, and the people that had me do them were trying to catch me. Shuri and her brother offered me safety and a place to heal.”

“Shuri is a nice princess,” Morgan decides and Bucky can only agree.

“You two having fun down there?” Bucky jumps and Morgan waves at her mother. He didn’t notice her coming. He did not hear Pepper coming or her car arriving. That scares the hell out of him. Morgan has absorbed his attention to such an extent that the Soldier that is ingrained into his bones didn’t notice.

“Hi mom! Bucky is showing me how to make rafts,” Morgan fills her mother in and shows her one of the models. Pepper comes down to the river bank and crouches down on the bank of the little alcove they’ve dug to create a pool of still water.

“That looks pretty good. I’m going to get you both some towels and then we’ll talk about lunch,” Pepper smiles, but her attention is on Bucky and Bucky is so bloody scared of this woman, Sam would laugh at him. Steve wouldn’t. Steve has met Peggy. He knows Pepper. He knows this. Pepper turns to him and her hand rests on his shoulder for a moment and only then he notices how tense he is. “At ease, soldier,” she smiles and Bucky tries his best to follow orders.

“I didn’t hear you coming,” he mutters in way of explanation and she nods and gets up.

“Electric cars, they’re quiet. And Morgan does that,” she chuckles and turns to walk towards the house. She walks quietly through the grass, her heels dangling from her hand. In the sunlight she almost looks okay.

“Are you staying for lunch?” Morgan looks at him and Bucky doesn’t know what to do with the realisation that she wants him to. That even Pepper might want her to.

“I think, I’m staying for dinner,” he smiles and catches the first model they built that’s trying to sneak into the current. “We have to build a raft, right?”


	3. Mail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky gets mail and isn’t really sure whether he is doing the right things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have what might be called a plot in mind now, but this will remain very structureless fluff. So expect nice things and very little to challenge them ^^

Bucky stays until dinner and they finish the raft the next day. After that, Bucky comes by often, and eventually he’s the one to pick Morgan up from school. Sometimes it's her and her friends, sometimes it's just her, Bucky doesn’t mind either way. Often he just brings her home and stays until Pepper gets there, but sometimes he stays for dinner. Sometimes it's late and he crashes on the couch. Sometimes Morgan will sneak down and they’ll talk and read and tell each other about their lives, well, one of Bucky’s lives anyway, until Pepper catches them and threatens to kick him out which she never does.

“You got mail,” Steve announces when Bucky drops by after work, and Bucky wonders what he’s laughing at. Bucky has his own place, a small apartment an hours walk from here, but he tells everyone he lives with Steve to take care of the old man that can take care of himself perfectly fine. It’s a habit and Bucky is paranoid, so his apartment is his hideout and Steve's house is as close to home as anything has gotten in years. It’s also where his mail goes to.

“From who,” Bucky asks as he drops his backpack and makes his way over to Steve in the living room. Steve doesn’t answer and just hands him a bright blue envelope. Bucky recognises the carefully scrawled letters immediately and his whole body melts into the smile on his face. Steve keeps grinning and Bucky would say something about that but he has mail.

He ever so fucking carefully pries open the envelope with the letter opener Steve hands him, careful to cut and not tear the paper, and he’s rewarded with a flood of metallic glittering dragon confetti in his lap. Steve is giggling like an idiot, but Bucky is too so he can’t really say anything about that. He fishes the letter from the envelop, together with another avalanche of dragon confetti, which he makes sure to sweep back into the envelop, he doesn’t want to miss a single one. Then he blends out Steve and starts reading the letter written in dark blue ink on light blue paper.

 

_Dear Mr. Bucky Barnes,_

_We learned how to write letters in school last week and we are supposed to write letters to people we know now. I think it’s stupid to write letters to my friends because they’re sitting next to me and anything I want to tell them will be faster if I just talk to them._

_Mom suggested I write to you, so I can invite you to my birthday party. I’ll be six in two days and we’re celebrating on the weekend and Mom was really smart and said to just combine the two projects. So now I’m writing you to invite you to my party._

_There will be cake and some of Mom’s friends are coming so there will also be a BBQ. I had to ask what that means, but I’ve tried spelling the whole word three times now and it’s stupid so I’m writing just the letters now. Mom refuses to tell me how it’s written and I’m not allowed to ask Friday for help with homework._

_So, it would be really nice if you could come to my birthday party on Saturday. It will be a sleepover so you need to bring a toothbrush and a bedroll._

_Please write back to the address on the envelope that isn’t yours so that I can show the letter to Mrs. Hereford to prove that I did my homework. I put a stamp in here as well, in case you don’t have a stamp._

_With kind regards,_

_Morgan Stark_

 

Bucky could feel his heart in his throat and he put the letter down because he didn’t know what else to do with it. Then he picked it up and read it again. Grinning like this hurt but he couldn’t get it off his face.

“Come on, you’re grinning like an idiot, let me in on the joke!” Bucky does, he hands the letter over, he trusts Steve, and he likes the way Steve giggles. “Well, she doesn’t know what she’s gotten herself into, inviting Bucky Barnes to a party,” Steve jokes and Bucky wants to laugh but all he can do is chuckle. He’s not sure if he misses that. He isn’t even sure what that was back then, how he was. He’s lost all of that, all of himself, and he’s not sure what to do with that now. He’s been picking up bits, picking up pieces, and he’s not sure if he wants them back.

“Steve…” He pauses and tries to find the right words, tries to get this right. Steve notices the shift in tone and watches him and Bucky wonders what his years of life have taught him. “I… Do you think it’ll be okay, if I’m me? Or should I be new?” God, the words make so little sense now that they’re out there, but Steve sighs like he knows what Bucky was trying to say and folds the letter, handing it back to him.

“I mean, I wanna tell you that it’ll be alright. But I don’t know.” Bucky nods and he’s scared again. Because he loves this. He loves little Morgan, and her curiosity. He loves how much he learned just because of her damn questions. He loves to fucking much that he has a notebook in his back pocket now where he notes down all her questions he can’t answer to learn enough so he can the next time. He loves that Pepper accepts him and asks him to help her cook dinner, that she asks him to help rebuild the porch. He loves all of it.

But he knows what he‘s bringing, he’s swimming in blood and he‘s bringing death. It’s so often that he can‘t stop thinking about it, the way Maria Stark's neck snapped under his fingers, the way the impact of hitting Stark’s suit vibrated through his bones, the way he blindly followed Steve instead of listening, instead of paying attention the way he should have.

“I think it's worth a try though,” Steve continues softly and it has exactly the effect he was probably going for, pulling Bucky out of his spiral towards darkness. Bucky looks up and looks for hope on Steve’s old face, looks for wisdom and help and hope, and it’s so weird that Steve can give that now. “It won’t be easy, sure. We didn’t sign up for easy. But the way I see it, there are two choices to be made here. You can choose to trust her. And she can choose to forgive you and accept you. Not now. In a few years.” Bucky swallows and he can remember the last time he’s been this scared, back then he was opening the mail and learning he’d been drafted.

“What if she doesn’t though? What if she finds out what I did, what I am, and then I ruined everything because I’ve been a murderer all this time?” It’s so much easier saying that than saying what he’s been afraid of since the funeral. Steve smiles and it's a different kindness than he knows from Pepper. Steve’s kindness was that of a man who had nothing else left.

“See, that’s not the choice you get to make. You only get to choose whether you want to give her a chance. Whether you want to trust her like that. The rest is up to her.” Bucky is not sure how he feels like that. He accepted pretty early on after the Potomac that trusting other people was part of life. He couldn’t do everything on his own, he couldn’t control everything. All he can do is choose the people he trusts. And right now, that’s Steve. Sure, he trusts Pepper to some extent, but with his life, not his future. And funnily enough, he trusts a soon to be six year old.

“I need to talk to Pepper,” Bucky murmurs. Steve gets that. Bucky takes the envelope and makes sure all the little glitter dragons are inside. He folds his letter and tucks it inside the envelope. He saves it inside the notebook filled with questions and he keeps it there for years.


	4. Pepper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky talks to Pepper and really doesn’t know how it’ll go.

Bucky meets Pepper for coffee somewhere in the city. He doesn’t know how this will end and he doesn’t want to be kicked out. He doesn’t want Morgan to see that when it happens. He’s got her letter in his notebook and he doesn’t know what he’ll do with it when he’s cut out of her life. Pepper sinks onto the seat opposite him elegantly and she’s smiling, properly, it's no longer her press smile, he’s got his own now. He really doesn’t want to lose it.

“Hi Pepper.” He tries a smile and it's easy and he’s not sure if that’s because of her or because he’s been moulded to lie.

“Morning James. How are you doing?” She’s been asking that for some time now. And meaning it. Bucky loves it, he loves the idea that someone cares, even if she’s pretending or just being polite. But today, that’s not what he needs. That’s not what this needs to be.

“I wanted to ask you some things. Stuff I’ve been wondering about a lot.” Pepper is still smiling but its careful again, guarded, and Bucky is glad for it. This will hurt, both of them, and he wants to give her a change to put on armour.

“Feel free to ask, James,” Pepper smiles and he can tell she's on guard, and that doesn't mean he doesn't have to be honest now.

“Uhm, I wanted to ask what you think. About me being in your life like this. In Morgan's life.” Pepper chuckles because it gives her time to think, gives her time to figure out where he’s going with this. She puts down her coffee and looks at him, looks him in the eyes to see what he wants to hear. But Bucky is good at this, he can feel the blood on his skin, can feel it drying on his face, and it makes his face a mask of his ice.

“I’m not sure what you mean, James. Morgan likes you, a lot. I do too, it’s fun to have you around.” Bucky lets go of the cup he’s been holding on to, he can feel himself growing tense and he doesn’t want to break anything.

“I killed Tony’s parents, Pepper.” It makes him feel sick to see the words out there and it's good he hasn’t eaten anything today. He doesn’t want to worry about throwing up too. He doesn’t look at her as he continues, it’s enough to feel the disgust and fear, he doesn’t need to see that on her face too. “I’m a murderer. I have a list of three hundred and more, and those are only the ones I found the names of. I’m… I don’t know if you know that. And I don’t know if you want that for Morgan.” His voice is stable and cold and his heart and pulse are calm. Ah, the benefits of being able to dissociate. His real self is somewhere out there, and all that’s left is the soldier whose hands are stuck in guts and bones and who doesn’t even flinch. Sometimes he’s glad for that.

Pepper breathes and stares down at her coffee. Bucky can tell she’s trying to collect herself, she doesn’t want to be emotional in a cafe. It’s why they’re here, it's why Bucky picked this place. He needs answers first. Emotions are such a mess, he doesn’t get most of them and he wants answers and a stable footing before he deals with them.

“Uhm, yeah. Tony told me. Of course he did,” she smiles through her sob and breathes, tries her best not to cry and she doesn’t, because Pepper is a beast. She bites her lip and looks at him and Bucky is too slow, he’s trapped in her eyes and can’t look away anymore. She’s almost not crying. “I know all that, James. Don’t think for a second you would’ve gotten anywhere close to Morgan if I hadn’t allowed it.”

“I know,” he murmurs and he really does. It was always easy to go to Stark’s house because he knew in his bones that Pepper wouldn’t flinch to gun him down if he made a wrong move. He knew that and trusted her with his life.

“Tony and I, we talked about you. We talked about all of them, all the Avengers and whatnot. He was never sure about you and when…” she pauses and then realizes that right now she doesn’t care about his feelings. “When Thanos happened the first time, he said that he regretted not getting to talk to you. He said he wished it had been just you and him in Siberia, maybe things would have ended differently.”

Bucky laughs softly and rubs his face with his hands. How often he’s thought the same ever since. How conflicted he’s been about his undying allegiance to Steve. But it’s too late now. Too fucking late now. Bucky wants to hit something and wishes that wasn’t his first instinct.

“What’s so funny,” Pepper asks and Bucky tries to lock his emotions away.

“I’ve wondered the same a lot,” he tries to explain. Pepper smiles quickly and looks back at her coffee.

“James, I’ve talked to Shuri. About you, just after you came by the first time.” Bucky looks up and his stomach sinks again. But Pepper continues before he can figure out what this is. “I wasn’t sure about you, so I figured I’d talk to the person that knew you best.” Pepper is the first person he’s ever met that doesn’t think that’s Steve. But Bucky already knew Pepper was smart. “She said you left on your own. She said she had to force you to take the arm she made for you with you, that you wanted to take nothing. She said you…” Her voice trails off but Bucky knows what she means.

“I wanted to start over. I wanted to take nothing, a clean slate, be someone new.” Pepper smiles again with a little joy and a little relief. She just wanted to hear whether those words sounded like truth in his voice.

“Someone new, right? A clean slate. Whatever it is, it makes my daughter smile. It makes her forget sometimes that she’s lost her father. And it makes it a little easier for me, because…” She has to stop again and she breathes, collects her voice and when she looks up she’s smiling his smile and her voice doesn’t crack. “Because she’s with someone. She’s playing with you, rather than without him. She can ask holes into you, instead of burning up with curiosity because there’s nobody to ask.” Bucky nods and smiles and is glad his heart is locked away. Because he can tell that it hurts and that it’s happy to hear this at the same time. He doesn’t need to feel that right now.

“Thank you. For letting me be there with both of you.” Pepper finishes her coffee and smiles and he can tell she’s soothing over her heart, whispering to it so it won’t hurt as much, not right now, maybe later. “I just… I’m not anything of what I used to be. But I was that once. And I don’t know how much to tell her,” he admits and Pepper is properly smiling. Bucky wonders if hearts can be made of vibranium. Because hers is. Pepper is made of something stronger than anyone Bucky has ever met.

“Just answer her questions when she asks. She’ll figure it out sooner rather than later. And then it’s on you to explain. You do that very well, so I wouldn’t worry. She’ll get it. She’s smart…” She trails off and Bucky smiles softly.


	5. Birthday Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky goes to Morgan’s birthday party.

Bucky has gotten Morgan two gifts for her birthday and Steve turns out to be surprisingly proficient in wrapping the last one.

“A mechanics tool kit, really? Don’t you think that’ll be a little insensitive towards Pepper?” But Bucky shrugs. Of course he’s thought of this. He’s bloody asked her, twice, if she was okay with it. She said sure, as long as Morgan wouldn’t get hurt. That’s what she always said. And since Bucky would chew off his other arm before he’d let Morgan get hurt, that was that.

“She said she wanted to help fix up my bike. And Pepper still has the work shed locked, so I thought I’d get her her own set.” Steve nods absentmindedly, reading the list of tools on the packaging they just tore off.

“Blue, huh? Didn’t have a girls set?” Bucky doesn’t dignify that with an answer. Who’s he to tell Steve the world has moved on from that.

“It’s her favourite colour,” Bucky explains and tears the plastic wrap off the gift paper. It’s got dragons on it. Bucky thinks that’s a good little joke, and Steve says nothing, just helps him wrap the tool kit. Bucky gets the letter he wrote to Morgan and slips it beneath the bow before they tie it down. He didn’t use the stamp Morgan sent, and the letter will be faster with him than with the mail.

“Well, off you go, or you’ll be late for the party,” Steve chuckles and Bucky carefully slips the present into his backpack as not to ruin the packaging.

“Don’t wait up for me old man,” he throws over his shoulder, shoulders the backpack and is out of the door before Steve can say anything. The neighbours bike is parked in front of the house and Bucky can’t help but smile at it. He was able to afford it with his last paycheck, and he’s going to make it _his_ bike soon enough. And they way it looks right now, with Morgans help.

When he gets to the house its decorated in balloons and colours. Mainly blue, but apparently Morgan has been lenient and allowed some other colours to join the fray. A handful of kids, all of which Bucky has picked up from school at some point, are running around, Morgan in the middle of them, and a handful of adults, all of which Bucky knows to some extent, are lingering on the porch.

Pepper spots him first and smiles, waving him over, and he readily complies. The others follow her gaze and some of them smile, most don’t. Buckys heart sinks a little but he scolds himself. They have all reason to be cautious, all reason not to want him here. He clings to his backpack, clings to what’s inside and heads over to the adults first.

The Black Widow detaches herself from the group and comes to meet him halfway. Natascha smiles and plants herself right in front of him, forcing him to stop.

“Hello Ghost,” she says and smiles like there’s nothing but good memories connected to that name. Like it doesn’t taste of bunkers and blood and ballet shoes in her mouth. Bucky smiles back, softly and with as much kindness he can find, a smile that’s decades old.

“Hello Natalia.” She shifts her weight and all of a sudden this isn’t a meeting between two assassins anymore, this isn’t their past and careful brushing of trauma anymore. She shifts her weight and all of a sudden they’re just chatting, just two adults talking about their day.

“Pepper called you? Didn’t think you were in contact that much.” Bucky grins, thinking of the blue letter in his notebook.

“Nope. Morgan invited me,” he explains and there’s pride in his voice and chest that Natalia notices of course.

“Morgan, huh? We’ll talk about it later.” She turns and walks and Bucky is fucking glad to have a Black Widow with him. Especially this one. The others that survived were also good, all of them where, even the ones that didn’t make it, but Natalia always excelled at this, at the emotion part of it. Bucky knows she can read him, she can flip through his pages like a children’s book, and right now, she knows he’s burning to tell her all about Morgan, and she’s not going to listen. He knows she cares, but she’ll save it for later, for when the tone shifts and he needs rescuing from someone else.

Bucky realises he’s missed Natalia. She’s a strange case. Like a lot of his memories, the ones with a dozen tiny dancers in it aren’t really his. He was there, he knows, but they’re from another life, another person almost. But he’s got a lot of those memories, the ones with tiny Natalia in it are different though. Because he liked her, even back then, he liked all of them. And back then, that wasn’t allowed. Back then that was a sign of humanity, and that wasn’t allowed. He’s happy that Natalia is still here, he’s happy that part of his past is still around.

The rest of the group are not too happy. Coulson who helped him find his apartment shows nothing of that, his face is as blank as ever, but Bucky can feel his unease. Coulson likes Pepper, Bucky gets his unease. He gets everyone’s uneasy, but that doesn‘t make it any easier to bear. So he steels himself behind Natalia, locks away everything he‘s worked so hard to put in the open for Morgan, and becomes who he was in Bucharest.

“You invited him?” Bucky hears Colonel Rhodes whisper to Pepper and he pretends he didn’t, because he shouldn’t, no human should, but he hasn’t been human in some time now.

“Morgan invited him,” Pepper comes to his defense while Rhodey eyes Natalia, not sure why she’s defending him. Bucky wishes he’d never come here.

“You let Morgan near him?”  Rhodey says and Bucky, who’s still wondering the very same, is scared Pepper might change her mind. But Pepper is smart, so much smarter than anyone gives her credit for and saves him.

“Morgan! Look who made it!” She yells into the lawn and out of some bush rolls Morgan, dressed in shorts and a cape. Her eyes scour the crowds of adults she doesn’t really care for until they latch on to the silver arm hiding behind Natascha.

“Bucky!” She shouts and Bucky has to smile. Morgan has this way of demanding all his attention, of absorbing his senses until he feels vaguely human again. He doesn’t feel the eyes on him anymore, doesn’t feel the others shock and distrust of Natalia’s pride and her smile. He only really sees Morgan running towards her, her cape flying.

He crouches down just before she reaches him so he can hug her and it's so scary how small and frail her body is beneath his arms. He’s never really touched her with his left arm and this is very much the same, the metal hanging limply at his side while the blood and bone pulls the little ball of wild energy to his chest.

“Mom said you wouldn’t come maybe,” Morgan opens and Bucky’s heart breaks a little at the genuine worry and hurt in her voice. He looks over his shoulder to Pepper, doesn’t see the others staring, just sees Pepper shrugging apologetically.

“But you invited me,” Bucky murmurs the way he always does with her because Morgan has enough time for him, enough time to listen. “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” That earns him another hug and Bucky makes a note to be honest like this more often. “I got you presents, do you know where I should put them?” Her face lights up and she nods, taking his metal hand like its nothing, because to her it is, and leads the way.

She drags him past the concerned and confused adults, past the grinning Natalia, into the house where they’re safe from everyone for a moment. Bucky loses all the tension he hadn’t noticed he’d held and drops down on the couch next to the little table that is piled high with presents.

“Mom says we’ll open them when everyone is gone so that nobody gets jealous,” Morgan explains and Bucky can only nod. He’s too absorbed in the refuge and relief of the moment, in the few minutes of safety he has in here where they can’t see him.

“Are you okay?” Bucky looks up and into Morgans face full of concern. He smiles, a reaction he can’t quite control anymore. “You look scared,” she notes. Bucky feels inside him, and has to agree. Pepper once told him over coffee that she gets that from her father, after Bucky told her about the time he was horrified when Morgan noticed a rather deep cut in his arm that he hadn’t noticed because he’s used to not really feeling pain.

“Your mom’s friends don’t like me,” he almost whispers, because Natalia can hear him and so can some of the others. But then again, why should he whisper, they know and the might as well know that he’s noticed. “They think I’m someone I’m not anymore. Something I used to be. They’re scared I might hurt you.” He doesn’t know if that’s too much, if he’s telling Morgan things she shouldn’t know. But as usual Morgan surprises him and understands what he means.

“Then play with us. I invited you ‘cause I wanted you at my party. You don’t have to talk with them if you don’t want to.” Bucky has to smile again and allows himself to disentangle some leaves from her hair.

“You’re really smart, you know that?” He murmurs because he doesn’t want to say thank you, because she wouldn’t understand what for. So he pulls the two presents out of the bag and hides them under the table, making sure the letter is still there. Then he nods to Morgan and follows her out towards where the rest of the kids are waiting for their queen.


	6. Later that Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky talks to Natascha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And another chapter. I’ve got ideas for a few more, but I’ll just try to conclude this naturally when an opportunity presents itself. Like stated at the start, this is just fluff to get us all through the trauma dealt by Endgame, so there’s not really a plan or structure to this.

Bucky is exhausted and he eventually retreats behind the garage. The garage is generally avoided by both the adults and the kids, mainly because Pepper avoids it. Bucky gets why, he can feel the grief and hollowness that‘s locked inside, but he needs a break, he needs to breathe and behind the garage is quiet.

So Bucky slides down the wall of the house and crouches down, breathing in the smell of the grass and relishing the lack of sound around him. He breathes and listens to the quiet immediately around him, tries not to listen to the conversations happening on the other side of the house.

He needs those to stop right now. He can feel their distrust leeching on him and he hates the way it makes him feel like he‘s fading away. They‘re all taking parts of him, inspecting them and passing them around, leaving him with nothing.

Natalia’s voice has softly detached itself from the murmuring conversation on the other side of the house and he can hear her coming towards him. For a moment he wonders whether he should get up and leave. But he’s not sure anymore if he really wants to be alone, and Natalia gets that enough for him to try.

“So, the little Stark, huh?” Natalia sits down in the grass next to him, leaning against the wall and Bucky is glad for it. Now he has something else to focus on.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he murmurs instead of answering her question, they’ll get to that anyway. Morgan has taught him to be honest, not always, hell, not even often, but sometimes. And she’ taught him how to recognise moments when honesty is really the only option. Right now is one of those. Natalia chuckles and glances over to him.

“Don’t start this with me, Ghost, I don’t know how to work with that.” Now it’s his turn to laugh. He loves the black widow, he loves that he knows how she thinks.

“Sorry. Today’s been a mess.” It’s an excuse, but Natalia takes it. She’s better at seeing and working with lies than honesty. Tough luck. Bucky’s learned to be honest, and he’s learned to like it. But Natalia is good, she wouldn’t be alive if she wasn’t, she’ll catch up.

“Figured. It’s not fair how they’re treating you.” Bucky looks out on the water and wonders if he’ll ever believe that. If he’ll ever think of himself as someone without debts.

“No, it’s fair. They’re worried and scared, I get that. Just needed a break for a moment.”

“So now you’re hiding behind a shed.” That’s something he has learned too. He’s learned that by watching Tony, what’s left of him in the world, and through Friday. He’s no longer ashamed of what he does to cope with things. He’s not going to correct her, not going to lie to tell her that he was patrolling around the house, that he heard something. Not that he could lie to a Black Widow anyways, at least not this one.

“Yeah, didn’t want to bother Morgan at her own party.”

“That little demon is what you call a break? She’s asking me questions until I forget my own name?!” Bucky doesn’t even try to fight the smile full of fondness and warmth that slips onto his face.

“I don’t mind it,” he says and Natalia reads him better than he could explain himself with words anyways.

“Just make sure Pepper doesn’t bite your head off one day. All those idiots think she’s more fragile now, like it was Tony backing her up.” Natalia scoffs and gestures in the general direction of the press. Bucky has to laugh, it startles her.

“Pepper has more backbone than Tony and Howard combined. No, don’t worry. I’m well aware that I’m here at her mercy.”

“And you still stick around?” Natalia asks incredulously and Bucky wonders if she’s ever tried to fight those instincts that make her cautious first and human second.

“I appreciate it. I can be myself around Morgan, whatever that means now, safe in the knowledge that I’ll be dead before I do her any harm. With Pepper watching out for the Winter Soldier, I don’t need to. It’s nice, not having to be on guard all the time.” Natalia nods and although Bucky can tell she doesn’t agree, he knows she understands and that’s an overwhelming feeling he hasn’t had in some time.

“Do you have a number?” he asks the river and Natalia chuckles.

“Men who say that don’t live long, Ghost,” she quips and Bucky ignores the defeat in her voice. She doesn’t want him to address it anyways. Natalia is direct when she wants something. Cat and mouse games are for work.

“That’s fine by me. But I’m realising that I’ve missed you and someone to talk to like this. I’d like the chance to do this again,” he explains and again he can feel her confusion at his blatant honesty. But she catches up.

“I guess. Just don’t call me when you’re drunk and horny, I don’t need to hear sob stories from a fossil,” she quips and snatches his phone from her hands.

“No worries there,” Bucky smiles and that makes her look up. Will you look at that, a secret the Black Widow doesn’t know? Bucky feels childlike glee rise up in him and he does his best to remain calm.

“As in you don’t drink?” She treads carefully, testing the strings she’s balancing on and Bucky can’t deny that he’s having fun watching her walk, luring her towards him.

“As in sexual desire doesn’t work for me,” he tries his best to explain. Maybe Natalia will get it. Steve doesn’t, although he tries. Maybe he’s too old, maybe he’s always been, Bucky doesn’t know, and doesn’t care much. They’re friends anyways.

Bucky watches Natalia, watches her thoughts race behind her eyes and his hopes rise. He can tell that she’s going through his files, both Hydra’s and Shield’s.

“For someone who’s Ace, you’ve had a lot of girls around you.” Bucky’s heart does something complicated when he hears that word slip through her lips because he’s never met anyone that knows what it means.

“They’re beautiful to look at, and easier to get to the places that make them happy when you’re me,” he tries to explain, hopes he makes sense. “Back then at least.”

“Were you ever in love?” That question hurts a little because he knows the thoughts behind it, but he also knows why she’s asking. She’s asking for herself, not sure what to do with her feelings now and Bucky thinks at least they’re both hurting and that makes it okay.

“Of course. I didn’t stick around with Steve this long for nothing. And don’t think for a minute you’d have survived your training all on your own, if I wasn’t looking out for you.” That makes her look up, and he tries to be as open as possible as she tries to read from his face what he meant by that. “The Red Room wasn’t nice to either of us. The program they’d laid out, none of you would’ve survived that. I figured I’d be more likely to survive their anger than you.”

Now she gets what he means. He can tell she doesn’t like the thought that he’d been easy on her back then, on all of them, not when what he was putting them through broke so many anyways, but then she sighs and he can relax. She won’t hate him for it, it’s not going to do any good and a Black Widow can deal with emotions like that.

“We should get back to the party,” she whispers and gives him back his phone. Bucky really doesn’t want to, but he lets her pull him to his feet and follows her. The rest of the night isn’t that bad. Maybe it’s the implied threat that is Natalia taking the Winter Soldier under her wing, maybe Pepper talked to them while he was gone, he doesn’t really know. He sticks to Pepper and Natalia and Morgan and is relieved when they all leave at the end of the night.


	7. Presents

The next morning finds Bucky already awake. It's been some time since the sun has managed to sneak up on him, and it never happens when he's with the Starks. Morgan is holding the mornings hand as she slowly sneaks down the stairs to find him sitting on the couch, on the spot Pepper designated as his what seems like forever ago. He's staring at the pile of presents left untouched yesterday because it was too late when everyone else left and Morgan had to go to bed.

"Morning," Bucky murmurs, dashing whatever hopes she'd harboured of surprising him. Morgan jumps down the last set of stairs the way she only does when Pepper isn‘t around and climbs onto the couch next to him, curling up at his side in a way that‘s so natural it‘ll kill him someday. Bucky freezes, he‘s done so ever since the first time she‘s done this, but Morgan has learned to ask and take what she wants from him, so she picks up his arm from the back of the couch and draws it around her, tapping some rhythm he doesn‘t know against the metal with her fingernails.

“How did you sleep?“ Morgan asks him that every time he sleeps over. Maybe Pepper told her about the nightmares, maybe she’s noticed on her own, Bucky doesn’t think that’s beyond her, but now she asks every time, and wants a proper answer. “Fine” usually doesn’t cut it.

“Five hours,” he reports and watches how her eyebrows pull together as she does the math on whether that’s enough. It’s not, he knows that, but he hasn’t slept enough ever since they put him in the ice the first time. Ever since then, sleep’s been for cryo. He hopes he’ll never have to go back into a cryogenic tube ever again, but a mindset is hard to lose after over half a century. “I dreamt we were on our raft going down the river.” Morgan twists herself the way only kids can and watches his face.

“Really?”

“No,” he admits and she settles back next to him, satisfied in having spotted his lie, as if he’d been trying to hide it. “It’s a nice dream though.”

Bucky has been lying about his dreams to Morgan ever since she first asked for them. She knows he’s lying, he also told her that the first time she asked. But even though Pepper has told him that he can tell Morgan anything, even though Pepper never really answers whenever he asks how much he can tell the little one, Bucky lies. He doesn’t want the pictures he sees at night inside of Morgan's head. Not even the ones that aren’t even that bad.

“You should tell me what you really dream of sometime,” Morgan thinks out loud and the idea settles down on the present pile, familiar and smiling in the morning light. Bucky doesn’t immediately discard it, and that alone is new. He makes a decision without thinking about it, something he’s been doing more often recently, just trusting his gut like that, the way he would when handling his body or other weapons. He now does that with people. So he decides without thinking and drops a challenging grin onto her.

“You know what, I’ll tell you all about my dreams once we’ve fixed up my bike.” Morgan grins back with the confidence only a six year old can have and nods.

“Deal. We fix your bike and make it cool, and then you tell me what you dreamt tonight.” Bucky realizes she might not have realized that he was talking about his motorbike, but he’s not going to correct her. Morgan is the smartest kid he knows, she doesn’t need his help or his hints. She’ll figure out why he was so ready to make this promise soon enough.

“Morning you two,” Pepper announces herself to Morgan because although he does his best not to listen, he’s heard her get up half an hour ago. She cried, but not for long, and Bucky always wonders if he should say or do something when that happens. But Pepper is like Morgan, she asks him if she needs something from him and takes what she wants. He does his best not to worry about either of them. Which is easier than usual because he now has the rest of the Avengers to worry about.

Bucky cranes his neck so he can see her and Morgan climbs up on him so she can hug her mother. Bucky thinks that Tony was probably the only person to ever seen Pepper look less than immaculate. Even in sweatpants and shirt she looks ready for anything.

“Bucky says I can help him fix his bike,” Morgan blurts out their little deal and Pepper nods with the same patient smile with which she’s been taking all of the stupid and less stupid ideas of Morgans that Bucky has agreed to go along with. That’s really what their relationship boils down to. Morgan wants to know something, find something out or build something, and Bucky says yes because he wants to see her smile and wants to keep her safe, and Pepper smiles with a patience that Bucky is honestly terrified of reaching the limit of.

“Sure. But presets and breakfast first, how about that?” So they torture Morgan a little more by declaring that breakfast comes first and then settle on the couch. Morgan is strangely meticulous when unwrapping her presents. She keeps all the paper folded up on one pile, all the ribbons on another and sorts all presents on the other couch, keeping a clear overview. Bucky watches in fascination as she slowly cleans up the mess that was the present pile and sorts everything out.

It’s pretty easy to tell which presents came from Avengers or Parents and which presents came from the kids. Peppers present is right at the bottom of the pile, probably because it was put there and is wrapped in a simple elegant blue. Bucky wonders if she wrapped it herself. He confirms she did when spotting a two day old paper cut on her left hand. He decides he likes that.

Morgan unwraps it with the same care as all the others and instead of squealing with joy or grinning she sits there for a while, staring at the covers of the two books now in her lap and deciphers what the titles are.

Bucky always thought that kids learned to read when they are seven or so, but Morgans curiosity had been stronger than any boundaries from the kindergarten, so she already knows her letters and while it's nowhere near what one might call reading yet, Bucky gives her another few months and she’ll be there too.

The first book is collection of biographies of the most influential women in history, and Bucky is happy to spot Peggy amongst the faces on the cover. The second book is a heavy tome on the greatest inventors in history with a sticker on the cover advertising the fact that it included entries on the famed Avengers Bruce Banner and Tony Stark. Morgan’s small fingers keep tracing the edges of the sticker while she works her way through the title, mouthing the sounds to string them together into words.

The air becomes slightly heavier with each second and it's such a strange contrast that Bucky can just sit there in awe and watch. A air of communal sadness and regret lays itself around the little girl surrounded by gift wrapping paper, ribbons and presents while Pepper and Bucky watch from the couch. The golden light of the rising sun peaks through the window and highlights the gaping hole in the room.

Morgan puts the books on the pile Bucky has figured are her favourite presents and climbs onto Peppers lap, drawing her arms around her neck in a hug.

“Thank you mom,” she whispers and in her voice Bucky can sense some level of understanding of what this means, what this moment is. Pepper is crying, soundlessly so she won’t disturb anyone, just silent tears running over her face into Morgan’s hair. Pepper only cries out loud when she’s alone or with Rhodey. And she only screams and hits things and breaks things when she’s all alone. Bucky hates those moments because he can hear them and he can hear that things she breaks, mainly her heart and his and furniture.

“You’ll be in both of those one day,” Pepper notes and nobody disputes that truth. Bucky wonders if he should have left, because this isn’t his moment to share, but he’s here and he’s Peppers escape as she motions over to him. “You still have some presents left, baby. Don’t make him wait like that.” Bucky is torn out of his awe of the amount of love on Peppers face when Morgan looks over to him and winks clumsily. He taught her that a few days ago and she’s caught on shockingly quickly. But she does that with everything.

As intended, hiding his presents under the couch table has left them for last and Morgan crawls under the table while Pepper wipes the tears off her face. She shoots him a quick smile, one of those _don’t worry I’m fine_ smiles, and like Natalia, Bucky just takes the lie because now is not the moment for that conversation to happen.

Morgan emerges from the table with the present he wrapped on his own and opens it, letting the folded paper fall onto the pile with all the others. Steve had no ribbons, so his presents are just paper. Pepper leans forward to read the cover of Morgan’s fourth new book now while Morgans fingers trace the letters.

It’s a book on learning and how to learn more efficiently. Pepper looks up at him and Bucky sees the offer for explanation even while he’s completely lost in the view of Morgan piercing the words together.

“If I’d gotten her a book on everything she was interested in, I wouldn’t have been able to carry them. I figured this was more efficient.” Pepper smiles at the same time as Morgan has pieced the title together. She looks up at him with some confusion, because the book is way too advanced for her and they both know it.

“I thought we could read it together,” he explains and Morgan's eyes light up. He also gets a hug, but only a quick one before she crawls back under the table. Pepper raises an eyebrow.

“Two presents?” Bucky shrugs helplessly, because when it comes to Morgan he’s mostly helpless and loving it.

“Couldn’t decide, and Steve said both.” A familiar little shadow passes over her eyes when he mentions Steve, and Bucky does his best not to, but sometimes  it's unavoidable. He feels the well known pang of regret and pain and he wished he’d been able to talk to Stark. About this, about Morgan, about whatever happened between him and Steve and about so much more. He pushes it away the way he always does and thinks it's probably not what he should be doing with his emotions. But Morgan has managed to pull the box wrapped in dragons out from under the table and now is just not the time.

Bucky eventually has to help Morgan unwrap the toolkit because while Steve’s wrapping looks good on the outside, it’s a mess to undo. He is careful not to rip the paper and Morgan puts it on the pile with the rest. He’s saved the letter from the wrapping before it could get lost, it’s homework after all.

Morgan puzzles a little before she can get the box open and a giant grin splits her face when she realises what this. A stifled sound comes from Pepper and when Bucky looks over she’s covering her smile with her hand, holding on to it so it won’t turn into something else.

“I’ll have your bike fixed in no time,” Morgan declares and turns to inspecting each and every in the kit. Bucky looks over to Pepper who’s crying again, but this time she can’t stop smiling and Bucky has learned that this is the best kind of crying that can happen, at least with Pepper.


	8. Research Phases

Instead of being mad at him for tricking her or being worried about their deal, Morgan eyes the motorbike like a problem and then turns to him for guidance.

The next hour or so are spent with taking the cover off the bike wherever possible and Bucky explaining what he knows about the thing to Morgan. It’s not too much honestly, he was never a car guy. So less than two hours later the bike is reassembled and Bucky and Morgan are standing in Peppers home office, their hands covered in oil.

“Mom, can Bucky and I go into the city to a museum and a library. We need to know how engines work,” Morgan declares their plan and Pepper stops eying their hands and looks up at Bucky’s face. It strange, this is both nothing and so bloody important. Because Bucky’s never been alone with Morgan like that before. He’s brought her home from school and waited with her for Pepper before, but they’ve never left the Stark grounds without Pepper or Pepper’s security before. And Bucky expects the same to happen, he expects Happy to be assigned to them and have to bear the other man's disapproving glance all afternoon, but today tastes different. And he’s right.

“Wash your hands and be back before lunch,” Pepper decides and Morgan is off in a storm, trying to scrub the motor oil off her hands in the bathroom sink. Bucky is still rooted to the carpet by Pepper’s eyes and watches her unfurl out of her chair and walk over to him. Bucky is frozen to the spot the same way, hell, in the same position as the soldier he used to be awaiting his orders. He hates it, but he doesn’t move because Pepper is right there, staring up into his face with the same leniency and room for mercy as a tigress.

“If anything happens to her,” she begins and Bucky’s heart is racing with both joy and terror. “If I get as much as hint that anything happened, you’ll find that Hydra was kind compared to me,” she murmurs and then smiles her press smile. Bucky has a newfound respect for Stark and nods. Then he leaves because he has to and is behind the garage faster than he can start thinking again. He has his panic attack there.

He’s been having those ever since he came out of the ice and Princess Shuri greeted him, and he’s been getting no better at keeping them under control. He has however learned what the beginning of one feels like and the fear and heart race he felt under Peppers threat were only too familiar.

So now he’s sitting behind the garage, his heart racing so fast it hurts, his chest imploding and his head spinning from too little air. He starts counting because he’ll do anything to keep the thought, or worse memory, of Hydra out of his head, but he’s not too successful, he keeps slipping into Russian. He tells himself that he’s okay, that Pepper doesn’t know what she’s talking about, that Hydra can’t get him here and that Pepper has no idea about what they did, what parts scare him the most. But he can’t quite believe himself, doesn’t quite trust Pepper to have no idea, because she’s fucking smart, so much smarter than him, she could pull that off. She might just know the words, she might just know what they do, what happens to him. She might just know where to find one of the chairs with which to wipe him, again, and he completely trusts her to use it.

Morgan finds him, because he walked off calmly so Pepper doesn’t even know he’s missing. She finds him while he’s trying to breathe, trying to get back to English while his mind is just stuck in Russian and in dark bunkers with chairs and years he doesn’t know passed.

He notices her, of course he does, he can hear every fucking bird for a mile at least and all the sounds are just stuck in his head, going nowhere, just bouncing around with words he’s terrified of. He doesn’t move though, he’s not quite sure he can, all he can do is try to lie to the one person he can’t really lie to. So he untangles his metal fingers from his hair and digs his fingernails out of shoulder. Tries to relax and breathe and look normally while he feels like he’s dying. He wants to pace so bad, wants to do something, but he doesn’t, just sits quietly under her gaze and wonders if he’s passed. But then she tilts her head and he knows she knows that something is off.

“You didn’t wash your hands,” she notices and Bucky has to laugh. He opens his arms and she takes the invitation to hug him. Bucky is more careful that usual not to touch her, he’s got motor oil all over his fingers, but her little body in his arms is soothing like nothing else. When he can finally let go again he looks at her and at the open curiosity in her eyes.

“Needed some air first,” he says and that’s not what he wanted to say at all. But he’s had a hard time lying to her from day one.

“You look nervous.” Bucky has to smile because nervous doesn’t even begin to cover it, but also because all that’s left of the attack is a wave of exhaustion and the ever present fear that it will happen again.

“I had a panic attack,” he explains, again, not at all what he wanted to say, but now the words are out there. He’s avoided telling her about those until now, a damn long time, but now the secret’s out there.

“What’s that?” Bucky sometimes hears that question in his dreams and he doesn’t think he’ll ever get tired of that. He gets up and they walk to the outside hose together. Bucky can’t see Pepper right now and he doesn’t want her to see how much power Hydra still holds over him either. He explains while he washes his hands, scrubbing the motor oil off his skin.

“You know that feeling when you miss a step on a staircase? Or when you’re standing on a ledge and you wonder about jumping and you almost do it? Or when you realize you’ve just almost been hit by a car?” He knows she does. She’s told him about all of those. So it’s no surprise when she nods. “It’s like all of those together, for ten minutes. I get really really scared all of a sudden and it usually stay like that for five to ten minutes.” He doesn’t know how to explain it better, but he already knows he’ll be doing his reading tonight, just in case she has more questions tomorrow.

“That’s not nice,” Morgan notices and seems frustrated at her lack of words. Bucky can relate to that only too well.

“No, it’s not. But it usually helps to remember that what I’m scared of isn’t here and that it’ll be over soon.” Morgan nods like that makes sense.

“And is it over now?” She looks so worried for him and Bucky melts a little. No matter how ruthless Pepper can be, Morgan seems to have all the kindness in the world for him. He feels inside himself because he’s not quite sure what the answer to that question is. His heart is still beating hard against his ribs and he still feels like he’s shaking, like he shouldn’t be standing just yet, but he’s standing and calm.

“Almost. The bad part is over,” he informs her and Morgan nods. She keeps looking at him with hints of worry for the rest of the day. And most important of all, she doesn’t tell Pepper. Bucky is not ready for Pepper to know his weak spots like that yet.

They take the bus into the city because while Bucky is fine driving a bike that just barely works, he’s not letting Morgan on it, no matter how much she complains. He’s survived gunshots, explosions, torture, freezing and several hundred feet falls into rivers and ravines, he’ll survive a bike crash. But Morgan is the most fragile thing Bucky has ever seen and he refuses to let her get hurt.

They go to the museum on engines first. It’s their usual methodology, finding a museum or something else to gain a general comprehension and then raiding a library for answers to specific question that the broad overview didn’t answer. The second phase is usually just for Morgan, Bucky sometimes already has problems with the overview phase. He’s not stupid, he’s loved learning already before any of the wars he’s fought in and he still loves it, but there’s just no competing with Morgan. Her brain is like a sponge, greedily sucking up whatever information can be provided and there seems to be no barrier of entry too tall for her.

This time around again Bucky makes a note to hang out with more six year olds, because he’s pretty sure it’s not normal how quickly Morgan understands a combustion engine. Bucky just does what he can to learn with her, takes in what information he can retain and accepts that he’s most useful to Morgan when he’s just writing down her questions for later.

They’re out of the museum after four hours and Bucky has two pages of questions written down, three of which are his. They stop by the gift store for Bucky to buy a tiny model of a two cylinder engine for Morgan to play with, although he doesn’t think figuring out improvements to something not too much older than him is play anymore. Morgan waves at the ticket clerk as they leave the building and Bucky makes sure his sleeve is all the way down and his glove all the way up.

Next stop is the library where the lady at the front desk already knows them. She waves at them and greets Morgan and Bucky happily lets her do all the social interacting for him. It’s a habit he can’t and doesn’t really want to get rid of. Morgan asks where they can find engines and Bucky wonders whether the woman behind the counter tries to guess what topic they’ll be asking for next whenever they leave.

He’s glad when nobody has eyes on him anymore and they’re surrounded by books. Bucky has gotten better at reading out loud than he ever thought he would be, just because Morgan wants the information out of the text faster than she can read. So for now, he reads out the titles and chapters and paragraphs until each question is answered and no new ones come up. That usually takes longer than a day but his voice has become better and better and the last two times they’ve been here his throat didn’t hurt towards the end.

The lady behind the counter finds them five minutes before the library closes and Morgan stacks the books she wants to take with her in his arms. Something else he’s useful for. He’s stopped understanding what he’s been reading two hours ago, he’s never been too much into physics, but Morgan did after they puzzled out some parts together. It’s eerie how much understanding fits in that tiny brain of hers.

They head towards the exit when Morgan stops. She turns to the woman and asks if they can quickly go find a book about panic attacks, and because the woman knows them and thinks Morgan is adorable and Bucky tolerable, she says yes. The first time Morgan asked her for a book on something Bucky brought up she was whispering, trying to be polite, but Bucky stopped her immediately once they were outside.

“You don’t have to whisper around me,” he explained and Morgan had looked shocked and caught and he’d done his best to smile. “Don’t worry, I’m not mad. You can ask me or the woman there anything, I don’t mind. But I can hear you anyways, so you don’t need to whisper.” He explained it with a smile and Morgan realized quickly that he really wasn’t mad and really didn’t mind. So now she asks for a book on panic attacks loud and clear and Bucky carries the books on engines and motorbikes to the psychology section and back without minding or even really noticing.

He’s intrigued by the books in the shelves here and wonders if he should do some reading himself. His immediate reaction to the idea of anything or anyone getting into his head is a hard and fast no, but books aren’t Zola or Zemo, they can’t put anything in his head he won’t let them and he can close them any time he wants to. But before he can really decide on that they’re already outside of the section and outside of the building.

He’s absent minded all the way back home and Morgan has to help him pack the books into his backpack and pick the right bus line. She leaves him where he is, leaves him in his thoughts all the way to home and Bucky loves her all the more for it. Bucky has learned to appreciate people that will know when to leave him in his thoughts ever since he realised that Steve doesn’t really know how to do that.

He tears himself out of his own mind when they get back to the house, mainly because he doesn’t want Pepper to notice or worry any more than she already does. He smiles thankfully at Morgan and she winks at him and that melts him a little more.

Pepper tries not to check up on them immediately, tries not to show her worry and distrust that openly, but she’s in the living room with them two minutes after they’ve plopped down and Bucky has opened the book the lady from the counter interrupted them with. She’s smiling but while Bucky couldn’t recognise a truly honest smile if he was hit with it, he knows a lie when he sees one.

Pepper inspects Morgan casually, pretending to check whether her clothes need washing while really checking for everything else, and she finds nothing. All the while Morgan is talking about the museum, about the engines they saw and the signs that told them so preciously little of what they really wanted to know. She talks about the lady behind the counter and doesn’t talk about the book from the psychology section because she saw Bucky hiding it under a pillow and catches on so quickly.

“Seems like you had a good time,” Pepper smiles and she’s really looking at him and he smiles back. Tries to look innocent. Well, he doesn’t, he knows very well he can’t really do that, never could really, but he tries to look as honest and open as possible.

“We did,” he says and although Pepper still doesn’t trust him, he wouldn’t either in her position, he gets it really, she doesn’t have any evidence against him either. Bucky doesn’t like this, he doesn’t like that Pepper doesn’t trust him, that she thinks he could ever hurt Morgan, but he does his best to get it, to understand.

“Well, since I don’t really get any of this,” Pepper smiles, this time really, while flicking through a book on motorbikes. “I’ll leave you to your reading. Don’t forget about dinner though.” Morgan nods and keeps playing with the little engine model.

“Friday, can you remind us about dinner?”

“Of course, cupcake.” Pepper smiles and it's no longer real and is out of the room very quickly. Morgan knows not to ask for Friday too much, but she doesn’t quite understand yet why it hurts her mom the way it does. Her gaze follows Peppers bare feet across the floor and then she looks back at Bucky in a way that tells him she knows.

Bucky picks the book he set aside up again and starts reading the paragraph they were at again. That happens a lot. Moments where the air is wronged and hurt and uncomfortable and Morgan asks him to keep reading, because they both don’t know how to undo the tension, how to heal the hurt, but they know it’ll go away if they ignore it long enough.

So they do and it does and they’re back to learning, back to what they do best together. Bucky helping Morgan learn.


	9. Instincts and where they come from

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter, but that one idea I do have for plot will kick in now.

Pepper has muted Friday and so they forget about dinner. When Morgan goes to check way too late, Pepper is already asleep and Bucky can tell from the air that drifts out of her bedroom that she fell asleep crying. He can also tell from Morgan’s face that she knows.

So he picks her up because she loves it and nobody else ever does it. They all say she’s growing too heavy, but Bucky won't be bothered by that for a few more years. He picks her up and that at least makes her smile a little and when he offers to make pancakes for dinner he can bribe a full bit of joy out of her. Which is convenient because pancakes are really the full extent of his cooking skills.

As a team they make pancakes, Bucky reading while the pancakes are baking and Morgan instructing him on when he has to flip. They don’t bother making a stack, just make a mess of the kitchen by eating them right there on the counter. Neither of them have the access to unmute Friday, so they search the cupboards for anything sweet that will go with pancakes. They run out of reasonable toppings very quickly but that doesn’t stop them, and neither do Pepper or Friday, so Bucky enjoys spoiling Morgan and Morgan enjoys being spoiled. They do their best to eliminate all evidence of their crimes and try to leave the kitchen spotless, although Pepper will find out tomorrow anyway

When they get back to the couch Morgan stacks the books on engines in a neat pile according to which one they need to start with tomorrow and pulls out the book from the psychology isle. Bucky’s heart begins to race and he’s not sure he’s ready to read this just yet, but he tries to comfort himself with the idea that he usually doesn’t know what he’s reading out loud anyways. It’s sort of how his brain works, whenever he’s reading out loud he can’t really retain any information. He’s still scared though and he really doesn’t like that, but he doesn’t want to stop Morgan now. He never really wants to stop her ever, but he’s worried that today might be the first time.

“Are you tired?” Morgan asks and Bucky knows he’s fucked up. Morgan noticed something was wrong and now she’s investigating until she’s found the cause, uncovered the mysteries. And he’s really bad at lying to her.

“Not yet. But can we keep this book for tomorrow?” He does pretty well all things considered, his voice is steady and he’s not moving, not shaking, but Morgan knows him too well or knows too much in general and doesn’t buy it.

“Are you scared again?” Bucky tries to smile as a last cover but it’s blown and Morgan puts the book on the pile, the very top of the pile. “We can read it later,” she decides and Bucky falls in love with her a little more. But his words are failing him once again so he does what he can and hugs her. Because it’s hard to explain how good it is to not be asked to get over it, to not be told that it's fine, to not have to listen to an explanation of why this can’t hurt him. And it’s so good to just get a break like that. That they can read it later, that he doesn’t have to do it now.

“Thanks,” he whispers into her hair and although he’s not sure she gets why, she understands well enough. More than anyone really. He lets her go a little and looks at her and in her eyes he can see what made Stark so great. He can see intelligence, so much it’s scary, and he can see empathy, so much she’ll be hurt by it. “Well read it tomorrow,” he promises himself more than her, because although he loves her, he loves this and he loves that she takes care of him like this without really knowing what she’s doing, but he will not be the one to hold her back. And if she wants to learn about panic attacks, he’ll be able to do this.

“We’ll try tomorrow,” Morgan corrects him and it makes all the difference in the world. Then he takes her to bed and makes his way back down to the couch.

But much like usual, Bucky has trouble finding sleep. Pepper and Morgan don’t know this because Hydra made damn sure he could function for well over fifty hours of sleep before suffering any symptoms. He’s honest whenever Morgan asks how much he sleeps, but he knows he’ll stop doing that as soon as she’ll start to understand what two hours of restless sleep really means. That was the condition he gave himself when she asked the first time and he wondered what to tell her. He’d start lying when she started understanding.

Bucky crawls off the sofa and away from the book pile where tomorrow was waiting for him like a looming shadow. He's not sure how longer he’ll let himself be excused by Morgans leniency. He knows she’ll give him as much space as he needs, let alone asks for, but Bucky doesn’t want to hold her back, Bucky doesn’t want to rely on her mercy.

He leaves the house and breathes in the night. He knows very well where that thought is coming from, his fear of relying on others and his need to be independent. He’d been running from that idea for some time now. Running from people to rely on. Bucky is tired of running though, he’s sick of not being alone. He’s not now and he’s determined to hold on to that with tooth and nail. But he still wants to be outside for that kind of thought. He doesn’t want Hydra in Stark’s house, under the roof that Morgan and Pepper find sleep and safety under.

So he goes to what has become his refuge here and leans against the back wall of the garage. But he doesn’t stay there long and starts pacing, wandering around the house first, then over the grounds, just wandering in general until he hits a street or a fence. Which doesn’t happen a lot because the grounds are huge. But eventually he does find his way back to the garage, the front this time and hasn’t really gotten anywhere.

He’s not used to fighting his instincts, those have kept him alive. But he also knows why they’re there, who placed them there. And he’s not sure if he still wants them. Bucky sighs and starts fiddling with the padlock that’s keeping a ghost in the garage just so his thoughts will slow down a little. He’s got lockpicks on him, again a pattern he doesn’t really want to question, and before he thinks about what he’s doing, he’s standing inside the garage.

He feels guilty immediately, but he’s better at breaking and entering than self reflection, so he closes the door behind him and waits for his eyes to get used to the light, or the lack thereof.

He gets why Stark worked here. There’s nice sense of ordered chaos in the garage, there’s tools and materials everywhere, but he’s pretty sure if he sat down he’d be able to figure out where to find anything. There’s only a tiny window up there on the wall, just big enough for smoke and toxins to escape, but not as big as to remind of the passing of time. Bucky can feel Stark losing himself to his work here. He likes it. It feels untouched and sealed, like the joy and meticulous care that were created in this room are still trapped here. It’s cold and empty, sure, but it feels like Stark could walk in here at any moment.

“I’m sorry for breaking in,” he murmurs preemptively, and that does something. It engages him with the expecting emptiness of the room and the room engages back.

“Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes detected,” a voice that sounds like Friday but without the warmth says and Bucky jumps. He’s in combat stance before he can think and suddenly knows the room around him by potential weapon and potential hazard. “Initiating Legacy Protocol.”

Bucky is tense but all the fear and uncertainty are burned out of his system. If there’s something he knows how to deal with, it’s this. He has no idea what's happening, but that’s what he knows and that’s what he’s been trained for. Every time he’s not sure about holding on to what Hydra put in him, every time he’s sleepless and doubting, this is the situation that comes to his mind, this is the what if that screams the loudest. What if there’s an attack, what if there’s a new threat? Thanos wasn’t the first, Thanos won’t be the last. What if something comes, what if something comes for Morgan, and he’ll be just like everyone else?

A few lights flare up around him and Bucky is in cover behind the workbench, a screwdriver in his hand. He’s listening intently, somewhere in the back of his mind he can tell Morgan is having a nightmare, but all his senses are focused around the soft sounds he knows from laptops and phones and computers. He’s triangulating distances, working out placements, and before he can put it all together, before his instincts can kick into gear…

“At ease, Soldier.”


	10. Legacy

Bucky is not at ease. He can feel the panic attack coming somewhere in his gut, but now is not the time for that, and he’s been a soldier longer than he’s been normal. So he stays in cover and tries to analyse the threat, or at least do the thinking part. His instincts have long decided that everything about this is wrong. Because he thought he’d heard that voice for the last time.

“Barnes, you can come out now. It’s a hologram, not the damn Russian invasion.” But Bucky knows in his gut that he’s right. It’s Starks voice, right behind the workbench, talking to him. This isn’t prerecorded, can’t be. The panic is getting worse, his heart is racing and although he’s breathing, calm and collected because what else is he supposed to be doing, he can’t get any air.

And then suddenly Stark is next to him, a dead man’s ghost is next to him and Bucky freezes up, does his damndest not to move because when he’s this scared the Winter Soldier does the better thinking. And the Winter Soldier thinks in attack, retreat and regroup, and Bucky doesn’t want to attack a ghost.

There’s worry on Stark's face, he looks at Bucky like a malfunctioning robot, but only the way Stark can, with love and care. Bucky would laugh if he could right now because being looked at like a problem, like a malfunctioning machine is so fucking familiar, and it really doesn’t help right now.

“Okay buddy, breathe.” The ghost is right next to him and worried, crouching in front of him in tennis shoes and Starks face. “Barnes, look at me, look up, come one, focus on me.” Bucky does because what else is there to do and he expects to see right through Stark, but he can’t, just almost, hell this is weird. “Breathe in, watch the light and breathe,” the ghost instructs and a tiny light appears in a soft blue, drawing eights in front of his eyes. So Bucky watches the light and tries to breathe.

“Easy there soldier, breathe. It’ll be over soon,” Stark murmurs and keeps watching Bucky. Strangely enough, that helps. Bucky knows being watched, he knows people looking at him looking for traces of wrong, and fuck if he isn’t good at hiding them. So he withdraws into himself and calms down, shuts himself in and becomes watchful, becomes the soldier that’s so much better at dealing with shit like this.

“There you go,” Stark says and gets up, taking a step away from him, giving him space. Bucky wonders how Stark can read his mind like that, how he knows what he needs so much better than Bucky knows himself. But that’s a problem for another time.

Bucky is staring at Stark, at the slightly blue ghost version of Stark that’s smirking at him with everything but his eyes and standing calmly with so much tension Bucky thinks he might jump any second. Stark just looks back and Bucky eventually acknowledges that he’s not going to get any answers through visuals.

“Stark,” Bucky takes the first step, lays down the first stone. He’s going to understand this slowly from the ground up, he’s learned that much with Morgan. The ghost nods and a smile that’s meant for everyone but himself flicks over Stark’s face.

“Well done, Sherlock.” Definitely Stark. The ghost or whatever this is stands still and awaits further questions. Bucky gets back up and takes care not to hold on to anything with his left hand because he’s tense as shit and really doesn’t know how he’ll react. And he doesn’t want to break anything.

“You’re dead.” He’s rarely actually interrogated anyone, the Winter Soldier never had to, but he knows how to do it from somewhere he doesn’t want to remember. Stark nods and something too complex for Bucky to read flashes over his face.

“Since you’re seeing this, yes. The Legacy Protocol is for after my death.”

“Legacy Protocol,” Bucky confirms and Stark grins and flicks his hand. Dozens of glowing holograms appear around him, showing texts and calculations and moving images he can’t keep track of. His gaze is glued to Stark. Never lose track of the target.

“Collection of the stuff in my brain. The good stuff anyway. Knowledge, ideas, secrets I never told,” Stark walks around and flicks through screens and stops in front of a video that shows a Howard Stark about ten years older than the one Bucky knows. “My death is a loss to the world,” Stark grins and Bucky knows that’s his press grin. Cocky and arrogant and completely lacking all the other things Bucky knows are there.

“You’re like Friday,” Bucky realises and Stark tilts his head.

“Almost. Friday is an AI. She learns and grows. I won’t. I’m all the things I was when I was alive, minus the genius. There won’t be any new ideas out of this, just old ones. This is a resource, not a person.” Bucky thinks he gets it.

“Does Pepper know?” Does Morgan know? He doubts it, and the grave look of  _ fuck, what have I done, I’m so sorry  _ and just so much sorrow on Stark’s face confirms it.

“No. Secret side project. And you don’t get to tell her.” Bucky nods, who’s he to dispute the man… hologram… whatever, anyway. A pause settles between them and they both stare down at it. Bucky tries not to think, tries not to get hit by the realisation of just how  _ weird _ this is. “How’s she taking it?” Stark breaks the silence and looks up at him, stares at Bucky the same way Pepper does sometimes. He wonders who got it from whom. Bucky swallows and tries to think, tries to think of the right things to say, but in the end it’s like talking to Morgan so he just tries to phrase the truth right.

“She’s tough. She cries, sometimes, but she’s something else.” Stark laughs softly and rubs his eyes. Bucky wonders if he feels sadness. If this is recorded from somewhen else. Questions for some other time. Not now.

“Got that right. And Morgan?” Bucky smiles, Morgans smile that’s soft and full of love and Stark’s eyes snap up.

“I think she’s okay. She doesn’t really understand what happened yet. She knows that her mom is hurt, and she tries to help, but she doesn’t really know what’s wrong.”

“Friday, what day is today?” Stark asks and it takes Bucky a second to catch on to one of the smartest men in the world.

“Friday is muted. Yesterday was Morgan’s sixth birthday party.” Bucky doesn’t know the date either, but that tells the hologram enough. He’s serious again and Bucky tries not to be scared of three points of light.

“And you were invited?” The question is pointed and sharp and Bucky wonders what a dead father would do to protect his child.

“I was. I come around a lot, we’re friends,” he tries to explain and he wishes he could talk like Steve sometimes. But then again he doesn’t. Steve talks so easily, so much. It doesn’t sound sincere often. It sounds like a speech often.

“Friends,” the hologram questions, his arms crossed in front of his chest. This is a new feeling for Bucky, being interrogated and wanting to answer. He’s not sure about it.

Bucky pulls out the notebook just to have something between him and Starks piercing gaze. He lets his fingers wander over it, some tactile distraction.

“Met at the funeral,” he starts and looks at Stark because he owes it to the man. “Yours,” he clarifies. “Everyone was around Pepper and the others, you know, the ones that were crying and hurt. Morgan didn’t really know what was going on and I was only there because of Steve. So she started talking to me.” Bucky shrugs and hopes that that is enough, but Stark cocks his head and keeps staring.

“And now you’re besties?” Bucky wants to run, but this isn’t his brain, this is something he can handle. This is a fear he knows and can work with.

“I wanted to talk to Pepper. I don’t know, it was a stupid idea, but I never got the chance with you that I wanted, so I figured…” Bucky sighs and breathes. It’s just light, there’s no pressure. He has time to find his words. “I was following impulses. When I got here Morgan was in trouble and I was just faster. Pulled her from the river and Morgan recognised me, so she invited me for dinner. Pepper called Happy and I got to stay over sometimes.” Stark squints at him, still not convinced.

“And you, what? Watch tv from the fifties?” Bucky tries a smile and feels sick. At least for this he’s got evidence.

“No. We do whatever she wants to. When Pepper lets us. We built a raft because I told her I’d done that when I was a kid. Went to a ship museum and a dam, learned about water and boats. Built a better raft. And then repeated that from there.” Starks expression is softened by genuine interest and curiosity.

“So…”

“Morgan wants to do something. Build something, learn something. And I go to museums and libraries and people with her and try to keep up as she learns. Write down her questions, read textbooks out loud, stuff like that. And then we go home and build stuff. Right now we’re working on my bike.” Stark pushes himself off the workbench he’s been leaning against and wanders towards a closet with tools.

“Bike, like motorbike?”

“Jup. Bought a used bike and got her a toolkit for her birthday. So we spent all day today in a museum on engines and the library to pick up books.” Stark smiles, his hands playing with the handle of a cupboard.

“Engines, huh?” he murmurs and smiles to himself. “You take care of her?” His head snaps up and fixes on Bucky, and Bucky has to smile because he knows this. From this morning even.

“Pepper’s already threatened me, don’t worry,” he says and tries not to let on how much that actually shook him. But Morgan got her empathy from Stark alright, and this is just enough Stark to catch on.

“My condolences,” Stark chuckles but doesn’t smile and keeps staring at Bucky, keeps trying to read him. A silence grows between them and Bucky learns to rely on experience, waits for Stark to break it. He doesn’t know what to say anyway.

“Those panic attacks, you get them often?” It’s funny how anything sounds casual when Stark says it. Bucky tries not to look up, because when he does he knows he’ll be lost, that’s the way it works with Morgan. But will you look at that, Bucky can’t think of a lie either. Stark’s disarmed him enough that he can’t think. Well, fuck.

“Not this often,” he says, hopes that’s it, hopes Stark doesn’t really care and will stop asking.

“Which means?” Stark dashes his hopes and Bucky sighs and holds on tightly to his heart. He doesn’t want to get kicked out of this place and he doesn’t want to lie to any of the Starks, not even the dead ones. Not if he doesn’t have to.

“Not twice a day.” That’s the last thing he  _ can _ do, since he’s not going to lie. Stark’s going to have to force every answer out of him one at a time. The hologram notices that and sighs.

“Okay, I get it,” Stark surrenders. “You’re not gonna talk, that’s fine. This,” he says and points at himself, “this is here to help. I’m here to help. Take it or leave it.” Bucky nods. Maybe not now. Maybe some other time.

“What am I going to do now?” Bucky asks, asks for instructions.

“Don’t tell Pepper. If she’s not using Friday, she’s not ready for this. And don’t tell Morgan either, really. Not unless she starts asking.” Bucky nods.

“Don’t tell anyone. What happens if Pepper does open the garage again?” Stark sighs and then does his press smile.

“I’ll deactivate the protocol when you leave. It’s designed only to activate when you, Romanov or Strange come in here. So as long as you don’t walk in here, it won’t reactive.”

“Why us?” Bucky wonders, storing the information given for later.

“Strange is impartial. He’s reasonable and smart and sort of likes me. Same goes for Romanov and you. So I trust you to run in here, sure, activate it, but keep a dead man’s secret.”

“Well, you weren’t wrong.” Stark smirks.

“Happens.”

“Do I have to leave yet?” Bucky doesn’t really know where that question comes from, but he doesn’t mind it there. Stark looks surprised, as surprised as the man can look probably.

“Becoming chatty, icicle?” Bucky shrugs, he wouldn’t mind the idea. He just doesn’t want to go outside yet, back to his thoughts about Hydra and nightmares.

“I’d normally bother Friday, but Friday’s muted.”

“Nightmares,” Stark notices and he’s not wrong so Bucky doesn’t bother correcting him.

“Usually. Thoughts and nightmares.” He sighs and gets it over with. “No, I want to talk to you.” Stark chuckles and grins.

“That’s literally what this is for. What I’m here for.” Bucky doesn’t say anything for a while. He walks around the workshop, lets his hands do the thinking for him while his brain is somewhere else. Stark doesn’t say anything either, just stands there and watches him.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky starts and stares at the workbench in front of him, at the wall in front of him and keeps his back to the hologram. “For Siberia. And everything else.” He turns around now, now that the start is made and he can’t pull back anymore. Stark is looking at him, guarded and careful and Bucky wonders if he learned that from Pepper of if he had to be hurt to learn it on his own. Actually, he knows the answer.

“I don’t really know why I’m doing this, you’re dead. I just…” Bucky sighs and he hates that he has no idea. “I wish we’d talked. I wish…” He stops himself and sinks back into thought. He wants to talk to Stark, the real Stark. He wants to apologise, he wants to know what he’s done, actually fucking know in his bones what he’s done to this kid he never knew. He wants to be hurt by it, he wants to know Stark and understand and maybe repent, maybe make up, but those are dreams and hopes.

“I wanted to understand better,” Bucky says and that feels mostly like the truth. He tries to hold on to that and follow it. “I know we’d never have been friends, we wouldn’t have to.” Think, come one. He tries to figure out why he wants to talk to the man so bad. “It’s just that I remember. I remember all of it. But it feels like watching someone else. And I don’t know what to do. I keep seeing those pictures, I keep feeling it, over and over, and it doesn’t stop and I can’t do anything about it. It’s like someone else’s worst nightmares in my head and I know I did them, I know, but there’s nothing I could do, and nothing I can do now.”

He hadn’t meant to say all that. Be that honest. Admit that he kept feeling Maria Starks life push against his arm. Bucky feels sick. But he looks up at Stark anyway. The holograms face is unreadable and for a second Bucky wonders if it’s even capable to deal with this. But then Stark breathes and moves and Bucky can tell that it is. Stark is a lot like Pepper in some ways. He functions. When other are around, he functions. He fixes things. So now he’s breathing and getting ready to fix this. Bucky is stuck in amazement when the hologram looks back up at him.

“I’m dead. There’s nothing new you’re getting out of me.” Bucky nods. He knows this. And he’s done his best to accept it. He never wanted forgiveness anyway, nothing like that. Just feel the damage. Understand. “So, you’ll have to make due with what’s recorded.” Bucky looks up. Stark is looking at him and there’s no anger on his face. Just hurt and more understanding that Bucky thought was possible.

“I don’t have it in me to forgive that. That would take therapy I never really got and years of time I didn’t have.” Bucky nods and listens. He doesn’t retreat, doesn’t defend himself. He just stands there, chest and heart bare and takes what this technical miracle can give. It’s more than he really deserves anyway. “But after I got back from Siberia, after I got to talk to Pepper, I did my best not to be mad at you.”

Tony flicks his fingers and a video appears next to them. Bucky doesn’t know it, but then again he does well enough. It’s him breaking out of his shield cell. It’s him in movement and full force. And then full stop. Full loss of control. Bucky shudders and wants to tear at flesh, his own preferably.

“I did my homework,” Stark continues and his voice is softer. When Bucky has to look away from the video, when he’s hurting Natalia, Stark catches his eyes and Bucky realises that he really did. “I’m not saying I get what it's like. I don’t. I’ve only ever voluntarily given up control of my sound mind to alcohol and others. But I think I get enough.” Bucky nods. Looks back down at his arm and blinks away the blood he can see running between the plates.

“Thanks,” he murmurs, and god he means it. He’s so fucking glad he’s gotten this chance, this glimmer of opportunity. “It’s really a loss.” He looks up and tries a smile. It works now, it feels real. “You’re a great man.” Stark smiles and Bucky can tell he thinks differently. Thought. This is so weird.

“Occasionally.” His voice is soft and Bucky is hit with a wave of nervous exhaustion from a fucking ghost. Stark tried, he really did, using the sticks thrown between his legs to climb the next mountain, climb the next hurdle, and once he started, he never really stopped. Hell, he’s dead and he hasn’t fucking stopped.

“You look tired.” Stark laughs.

“I’m dead, I can’t be tired.”

“I hope that’s true. From all I know, you deserve a break. To rest.” Stark smiles and Bucky can tell that he wishes he could agree.

“Ain’t no rest for the wicked.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will ya look at that, somethings happening. I’m hoping to get another few chapters out of this, depending on how things go with school and all.


	11. The book from the psychology section

Bucky doesn’t sleep that night. He stays in the garage for three more hours, talking, sometimes not. Bucky tells the hologram about Morgan. They talk about her, about how crazy fast she learns. He tells Stark about the tool kit he got her, and the deal they made. He’s honest about how he’s planning to never actually finish the bike. They talk about Pepper as well, talk about her iron skin and her heart that’s too soft to be doing this alone.

They talk a little about Bucky coming back. About who to tell. Stark eventually says he leaves it up to him and Bucky really doesn’t know what to do with that much trust. Stark notices.

“You’ll do just fine. You know the little bandit, you’ll know when it’s right.” And when he smiles after that it’s the most genuine smile Bucky has ever seen out of him.

When Bucky leaves the garage and locks it behind him, he’s a mess. He doesn’t know what he’s feeling, he doesn’t know what to do next. He figures it out though. He sits by the river and figures it out.

He can’t comprehend fully how glad and thankful he is for Stark’s genius. The idea of carrying another secret and having to protect it seems like a trivial price to pay for that. For the chance to figure this out. Those words are stuck in his head. Stark made this to help. And Bucky knows Stark never meant to help him. That’s not what this is for and Bucky doesn’t intend to use it like that. But he likes the illusion. He likes the hope that maybe, maybe in years to come, the smartest man in the world can help him. Because Bucky knows Stark could.

Most of all though, Bucky tries to settle. He sits and breathes and slips so easily into the blank mind of a soldier between missions it scares him. He inspects his minds, inspects his thoughts and emotions and works through them. So that when the sun rises and Morgan finds him still sitting by the riverbank, he can smile. Smile and greet her and say he’s just gotten up as well. And she doesn’t catch on. It’s the first time he lies to Morgan properly, the first time it works. And it won't be the last.

And at first Bucky hates it. He hates lying and he hates how easy it comes to him, how good he’s at it. But he gets used to it. What’s a bit of self loathing added to what he dreams at night anyways. It’s not quite back to normal, he sleeps worse and the panic attacks come more often, but it’s nothing he can’t work with. So he does.

Morgan doesn’t get to call in her end of the deal for a while. Her interests shift quickly, and once she’s in school they almost forget about the bike for weeks at a time. Morgan finds new friends in school and while Bucky missed his chance to hang out with more six year olds, he finds out that Morgan is indeed exceptional. She learns eerily fast and well and gets in trouble with teachers and fellow students a lot because of it. She’s brilliant with people and when she’s threatened with expulsion the second time, Bucky sits down with her they figure out how to keep that in check. It’s the first time Bucky feels like he has to limit her and he hates it. They both do, but they get through it.

Morgans friends change fast, almost as fast as her interests, and eventually Pepper lets down most of her guards and accepts Bucky as the one constant in Morgan’s life. He’s there to pick her up from detentions and aced tests. He’s there to rescue her form dates gone south and from sleepovers going too well. He keeps writing down her questions and goes with her through homework and projects, side projects and follows her wherever she leads really.

Sometimes she leads back to him, picking up on threads he leaves lying around, mostly on accident. One time when they’re on Christmas break, Morgan brings out a book that Bucky wouldn’t have minded if it had stayed forgotten.

“We never read this,” she opens and Bucky stops pretending to read the book on the history of fireworks, their current project. He’s been eying the book from the psychology section ever since it entered the room. He looks up, looks at her fearlessly because damn he’s been getting good at lying.

“Forgotten over a motorbike,” he smiles and makes it sound like nothing. Like he wasn’t glad when she hadn’t noticed that he’d put the book at the bottom.

“I read it for you.” Morgan cuts to the chase and he’s also glad for it because like that he doesn’t have time to prepare, lie, do anything really. The responsible part of him is glad she did, is scolding him for growing nervous and for hiding the book back then.

“Anything interesting?” It’s not the question he’s really asking, they both know it. But there’s an invisible script to moments like this, to those times Morgan has done her reading on her own because she knows by now that there are some things he doesn’t want to read.

“It says you should be seeing a therapist and taking medication.” Bucky chuckles. He loves how blunt Morgan is becoming. No games, no playing nice, no tricks. No manipulation like the Widows, no bright side like Steve. Just blunt truth from someone who’s right ‘cause they’ve done their reading.

“Probably,” he admits and he wonders if he’ll ever stop feeling like hostage under Morgan’s piercing gaze. She’s learning it from her mom and it’s really not good for him.

“And? Will you?” She leans back and has her arms crossed, a ten year old demanding more than they know. Or maybe she does know. Bucky can’t really read her face when she’s like this, when she’s interrogating him. He sighs to buy himself some time and falls back in his chair. They’ve moved their reading and research efforts into Morgan’s room two years ago. Pepper came checking on them every few hours back then, but that’s stopped too.

“No.” Morgan nods and flings the book onto her bed.

“Figured.” Bucky tries to read her, and it's easier now that she has the answers that she wants.

“And that makes you angry?” Morgan glares at him, he wasn’t supposed to know that.

“I just hate that nobody in this house asks for help when they need.” Bucky smiles. He’s part of the house. He really likes that.

“Try your mom then. You’ve got better chances with her.” Bucky knows Pepper has been seeing a therapist, but he also knows that stopped last year. He doesn't know how she’s doing though. Pepper has a great facade, one she never seems to get tired of carrying. He’s not quite sure why she thinks she needs to lie to him, why she wants to look happy to him, but he’s not going to question her.

“And you? You’re having panic attacks literally out of the book. And you’re not going to do anything?” Bucky doesn’t look at her, traces the colours of the carpet, because he doesn’t like admitting that there’s things that scare him like this does.

“I am doing stuff. Just…” He sighs and tries the Natalia route. Smile and hope it distracts people from what you’re saying. He knows it wont work for him, but he just has to believe in that enough to actually say it. So he smiles. Tells the truth, however pathetic it might sound. “Last time I dealt with a psychiatrist I was set off, hurt what friends I had in this century and helped bring about Thanos by dividing the Avengers. And the last medication I took made me a hostage in my own body. I’m not doing that again.”

Bucky knows well enough that not all psychiatrist are Zemo, hell, none of them are, Zemo was an agent, and he knows that most medication purchasable in a pharmacy won’t be used to heighten the effects of the wiping chair, but for now, that’s a decision he can’t unmake. Mainly because he’s tried and figured out what triggers are.

Morgan is staring at him, shock and fear on her face and Bucky sighs. He’s not hurt by it, he’s been waiting for it since day one. Waiting for her to realize who she’s friends with, who she’s giving her time to. Waiting for her to become scared of his every move. But he doesn’t leave just yet. That’s what the plan was for this, for when she’d find out. To leave, give her space to think, talk to her mom, talk to the other avengers. Leave it up the her to make the decision to have him in her life.

But Bucky has learned to be selfish, not very, just a little. Just selfish enough to wait for her reaction. So he doesn’t move, watches her, and waits for the fear on her brow to freeze her whole body.

“Friday?” Her voice is soft and confusing. Bucky shows nothing and tries to figure out where he went wrong. Because she isn’t scared. He’s heard fear in all kinds of voices, he knows what it sounds like, and it’s not here. If she’s not scared though, what is it? “Show me what he’s talking about,” Morgan instructs and picks up her tablet. Starts reading. The expression deepens and only when she looks up, horror painted onto her face, does he get it. Empathy. This isn’t her fear, its his. Not her horror at what she’s reading, his.

“Morgan?” He asks carefully when she’s not moving, not saying anything. And because he isn’t paying attention, all of it is on his face. His fear of losing her, of having to do any of this ever again, of losing control again and of all the things he should be doing to get better. Morgan gets up and walks over to him. Her hand trails over the metal arm she’s never been scared of because she didn’t know what it had done. She still doesn’t.

Morgan hugs him.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” she whispers and the way he can hear in her voice that she really is, so so so sorry, breaks his heart a little. She lets him go just a little, leaving her hands hanging around his neck and Bucky hopes she never lets go. Her face is so sincere and Bucky wonders what he’s done to serve this, to deserve this beautiful little human that learns so fast and cares so much about him.

“If you want,” she starts, slowly placing one word in front of the other like walking a tightrope, “we see what else we can do. Maybe we can do something to make it stop without a psychiatrist or medicine.” Bucky smiles and laughs a little and nods because he feels like crying.

“Sure,” he says, low and rough because he’s scared his voice will break otherwise. That gets her to smile and he wonders if she realises that he’ll agree to pretty much anything she says. Her smile is relieved and happy and hopeful and that kind of gets him to be relieved and hopeful.

“So, museum?” Bucky grins, and for the first time in forever the idea of looking at what's in his head is not that scary. A little, but he thinks that’s normal, that’s okay.

“Tomorrow after school.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait, but now that university has started up, I’m afraid my pace will be slowed down some. But fear not, I’m still writing away happily.


	12. Natalia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A super short chapter, I'm sorry, but university has started up again and everythings a little on fire right now.

That night, Bucky calls Natalia. He’s called her before one or two times, once to ask her how she was doing for no reason really, and once to actually ask to meet. Neither went over too well, but he’d expected that. Natalia knew these games, and she knew them from the red room. She didn't play them with people she liked. She played them with targets.

So when he calls her this time around, he has a plan. Because he knows perfectly well she won’t interact with him if she doesn’t have to. She’s smart like that. The more she likes someone, the less that person will know, because she’ll be far out of their lives. Which is incidentally also why Pepper and Morgan never get to see her either.

Natalia picks up.

“What do you want,” she asks. She speaks Russian around him, and he doesn’t mind enough to question the habit, just responds in Russian.

“I need your help with Morgan.” Bucky says it calmly because he doesn’t want to make her think it’s urgent. Well, she will anyway because he’s calling, but at least he can negotiate the threat level she’ll assign to the situation.

“Can you be in the park by the boat house in an hour?”

“See you there.” She hangs up and Bucky grins. He’s on the bench by the boat house within twenty minutes, the bike is parked outside the park. He takes in the moon and the clouds reflecting in the lake, listens to the sound of the waves playing with the boats. Natalia forms out of the shadows a few minutes later. Bucky’s sure she’s been here longer than he has and he wonders once again if she ever tries to rebel against the habits and training instilled in her by the red room.

Neither of them comment on how they‘re both early and watch the boats together. It would be almost peaceful, but Bucky knows it‘s not. It‘s not the kind of place Natalia would be comfortable in. It‘s the kind of place where she can keep track of every movement and has more exits prepared than he knows.

“So, what's up?” Bucky wonders if she sounds this cold in English too. With Steve or any of the others. He sighs and decides to get this over with as quickly as possible. It doesn’t really matter if he likes talking to her, if she doesn’t want to he’s not going to call her again.

“Morgan is trying to help me,” he starts and tries to cram what he hoped to explain over the course of a conversation into a single breathe. “Psychology stuff, you know. I don’t know how much to tell her.” It’s not what he’d hoped to talk about, really. But this is a simple question and then it’ll be over faster. Bucky knows what hostility towards him feels like, fucking hell he knows. That feeling is so deep in his bones he’d know it anywhere. And he knows that he doesn’t have to bear it anymore. There are people that like him now. Few, but he can escape to them.

Natalia raises an eyebrow and he wonders if that’s because this wasn’t the question she was expecting or because she knows it’s not the question he wanted to ask.

“Well, as little as possible without her noticing, I’d say.” She chuckles. “But then again, it’s not like you can lie to the little monster.” Bucky observes with curious fascination the jab of what he can only recognise as jealousy in his gut when she talks of Morgan with such affection. Funny. He’ll have to think about that when he’s alone.

“I’ve been getting better,” he defends himself and gets up. Natalia looks up at him in surprise and he doesn’t know what to make of that. If she hadn’t wanted him to feel unwanted he wouldn’t have, Widows are good like that. So why is she surprised that he’s reacting the way he was supposed to.

“I’m sorry I called,” he starts and he can almost see the flash of _oh no_ when she realizes that he’s doing the open honesty thing again. Almost funny. But he wants to get out of here, wants to leave her her space and wants to go home and figure out why his chest hurts the way it does right now, so he’s not in the mood to find things funny. “I didn’t get the hint the first two times, I got it now. I won’t contact you again.” He smiles apologetically and promises to himself he won’t call her again, then he turns and gets out of there.

Bucky can’t really figure out what the hell happened with Natalia yesterday, so he leaves it be. Just another weird night, he’s had plenty of those. Instead he focused on the day ahead. He leaves the motorbike a mile or so up the street from the Stark house because Morgan has made Friday wake her up whenever she hears it, Bucky doesn’t have the clearance to overwrite Morgan’s requests, and Pepper doesn’t know.

On the walk there Bucky has time to prepare. He goes through all the things that might come up today and tries to decide what to do when that happens, but there’s too many really. He realises quickly that today is not going to be like their other museum trips. Bucky usually has fun with those. No, today is going to be a mess. He’s going to have to figure out when to lie on a case by case basis. Well, almost. There are some things he knows already he won’t tell Morgan, no matter what.

He gets to the house before anyone else is awake. Only Friday greets him when he sits on the porch, listening to the river.

“Morning Friday.” He’s gotten used to the AI pretty quickly and she’s just another being living in the house now. She’s helped him through many nightmares and nights without sleep, and he’s come to like her. Hell, she’s a friend now.

“How was your night, Mr. Barnes?” One of the best things about Friday is her security protocol. Depending on what kind of access someone has, there are things she won't tell. And although Bucky doesn’t have the same privileges that Pepper and Morgan has, Pepper has granted him almost that a year or so ago. Which means that he can tell Friday anything. And only Pepper and Morgan will hear it, and only if they explicitly ignore both Friday’s and his wishes. What security access can't keep secret for him, guilt tripping can.

“Okay,” he sighs and leans back letting the morning sun warm his face.

“May I ask how much you slept?” Bucky is pretty sure Friday has been keeping a record on him, but she doesn’t pester him about it, so he doesn't really care. It’s probably good, should he ever find someone who can fix him. Maybe Stark’s ghost can do something with the data.

“I didn’t. I met Natalia, that was a mistake. And I don’t like dreaming about the Red Room.” He wonders if Friday has access to the files and recordings from the Red Room. She’s never asked him to clarify, so he’s always assumed that she does.

“How were things with Natasha?” Bucky sighs and wishes Friday cared a little less about him. But then again he doesn’t.

“Cold,” he tries to describe last night and finds that his words fall woefully short of actually capturing the discomfort and unease of all parties involved. “She doesn’t want me to talk to her.”

“Do you know that?” Of course not. But he does. Bucky has survived by not questioning his gut, by not second guessing his instincts. And his gut tells him Natalia wants him off her radar.

“I might as well. But that’s fine. I mean, I get why she wouldn’t want me in her life. Considering what kind of past we share. It’s not a nice thing to think about. And if I get to surround myself with nice things, so should she. Sure, I’d like to be something nice, but I get that I’m not.”

“That’s a very considerate mindset,” Friday comments and Bucky has to smile although he really doesn’t feel like it.

“I try.” There’s a pause between them and Bucky follows a robin as it hops over the hedge and towards the river.

“Mr. Barnes, you don’t need to worry about today.” Friday’s voice startles him out of the calm and his heart immediately picks up a beat when he realizes what she’s said. “You are exhibiting signs of stress,” she explains. Bucky wonders if Stark purposely made her this smart on purpose. He knows Stark monitored some of his own health with Friday, he just doesn’t know how much. He likes the idea that Friday is taking care of him the way she used to with Stark.

“And who says that’s because I’m worrying,” he tries to joke but his voice is tense and lying to an AI that can pick up on your heartbeat requires a whole different kind of preparation than lying to Morgan.

“Pattern analysis and basic psychology,” Friday quips and it actually gets him to laugh.

“That easy, huh?”

“You’re only human, Mr. Barnes.” She says it softly like she has any idea what that means. Because it’s something he didn’t know he needed to hear, and he didn’t know how badly. Sure, not average and far from normal, but in the end, only human.

“Remind me of that sometime,” he murmurs.

“Morgan is awake,” Friday says instead. So Bucky breathes and gets ready for today.


	13. Trying to Breathe

As predicted, the day is not fun for Bucky. It’s not really fun for Morgan either, but she loves learning, she’s positively addicted to it, so it’s better for her than for him. For Bucky, the day is a bloody minefield. He’s almost too busy trying to steer himself away from just being overwhelmed that he doesn’t notice what’s happening, but just almost.

They start out in a Museum on medicine, they’ve been here before and Bucky hangs back with the early WW1 surgeons while Morgan roams the History of Psychology section. That is until the clock strikes twelve and he’s dragged into a conference room where a professor whose name Bucky doesn’t remember because fuck there are many people in here gives a lecture.

From Morgan’s notes it’s a good lecture, she can write so fucking fast it's ridiculous, something veterans and trauma, Bucky doesn’t know, he tunes out and counts things for the next two hours. Heads. Hair colours. People that he doesn’t have to worry about in this situation. In that situation. Morgan’s spelling errors. He doesn't give her shit about it, his own spelling isn’t too great either, and there are barely any anyway.

All the while he’s trying to breathe, trying to stay calm so bad, trying to convince himself that being pinned down by a crowd of a hundred and twenty nine isn’t too bad and normal and nothing to fucking panic about. But as soon as the professor up front announces a break, Bucky is out of there. He almost loses track of Morgan, he’s the first one out the hall and around the corridor, just away from these people, somewhere there’s air and enough room to calm his revolting body. No, never mind, he fucking loses track of Morgan, he’s so freaked out he has no idea where she is and doesn’t even think about that until she finds him and puts a hand on his metal shoulder.

It’s something they’ve discussed, much to Bucky’s intense discomfort at the time, that touch is not something he can deal with when he’s freaking out. He feels like he’s dying, his heart is so fast it will stumble any minute, its so fast it hurts, and he can’t breathe at all, where did all the air go! And he can’t deal with touch like that, he can’t worry about anyone else right now, not like that. So Morgan touches his metal arm, the nerves moulded against the metal so sensitised the detect the pressure as if it were touch, but it’s not quite that. The sickly heat isn’t there, whatever is touching him doesn’t feel alive, and that’s good enough.

“Bucky, hey, Bucky, look at me. Focus on me. Come on, the ceiling isn’t me, look at me.” Bucky is dying to tell her that she sounds fucking exactly like her dad, he’s literally dying, but he can't tell her and he can't die so he does what he can do and follows her instructions. Morgan isn’t quite at giving orders just yet. She’ll pick that up before she’s in high school after the summer though, Bucky is sure of that. He looks at her and his brain doesn’t really compute what he’s seeing, can’t quite put the pieces of her face together.

Fuck. He knows this, but he’s never had it from a panic attack before. The edges of his vision are turning into static, the way Zolas Pills did, the way exhaustion sometimes does. Which doesn’t help at all. He can’t lose consciousness here, not with Morgan, not with Morgan on her own. He can’t do that! Fuck, what the hell is he supposed to do with that!

“Bucky, breathe. I need you to breathe with me. I count, you breathe. And in three minutes I want to know how many freckles are on my face. Come on, breathe.” Then she starts counting. Counts to seven and then stops. Counts to seven again. Stops. Bucky doesn’t make it to three at first. His eyes glide off her face and he can’t count and can’t breathe.

But then he makes it to four. Four seconds. Four freckles beneath her right eye. Then five. Then seven. Then he manages to hold the pauses. He manages to breathe. Morgan looks concerned, hell, she looks scared, but she smiles like the best of them.

“And?” She asks it softly and her voice cuts through the rumble our the crowd taking a break around the corner because that’s all he can pick up right now. Just her voice. Her breathing. The way her hair has dropped out from behind her ear when she fell on her knees in front of him. His every sense is hyper aware of every detail of her. And his brain is hyper aware that he just left her alone. Something could have happened. He could have lost her. In the crowd or worse.

It’s there that Bucky decides to play along. That he gives Morgan right, agrees with her. At first he was just tagging along, the way he always does, just following here wherever she leads, writing down her question and carrying her books. But on the floor of the museum around the corner from the lecture hall he agrees. He needs to fix this. His brain. Because he just left Morgan alone, something he promised Pepper and Steve and himself he wouldn’t do, he just lost her in the crowd like a mother in a supermarket. He’s a fucking supersoldier. He can hear a parking dispute on the other side of the building. And he hasn’t been genetically engineered, tortured, brainwashed and programmed to lose the one thing that really fucking matters.

“And what?” he whispers shakily, his voice just finding his rib cage again. Morgan laughs and she sounds so fucking relieved. Bucky doesn’t want to scare her like that. He never wants to be a source of fear in her life.

“And how many freckles?” she laughs and that gets him to smile a little too.

“Didn’t finish counting,” he says and she sits back on her heels, notebook and pen pressed to her chest.

“Some other time then.”

The noise of the crowd shifts. The break is over. Bucky gets up. Morgan looks up at him and he can see on her face the discussion they’re about to have, he can read the fucking script off her cheeks.

“Your mom will kill me if I leave you alone,” he says. Morgan wants to argue, takes breath to explain that he can wait outside, outside the hall, the building even, that he can’t go back in there, that he’s just had a major panic attack, that he needs a break, but she can read people better than he can. She can tell he won’t listen. So she slumps over in defeat and looks worried again.

“I’ll wait in the back for you. If you’re in any trouble, I’ll be seconds away. Just… in the back,” he murmurs as they slips through the doors with the last stragglers and for a second she looks worried, about him, but then she’s herself again, the most confident ten year old he knows, sitting between doctors and students, taking notes and writing questions.

After the lecture Morgan finds him in a corner near the back emergency exit. He’s not taken his eyes off her the entire time, but it’s slowly getting better now. As soon as she’s within the radius of his other senses his gaze wanders the crowd. He finds nothing, of course he doesn’t, but the fact that his instincts are still in place like this, the fact that the training he relies on to keep her safe is still there, that calms him.

A part of him doesn’t like the idea of using what Hydra made him to protect her, but the rest of him is practical, another gift from Zola, and can’t deny that these things have kept him alive. That’s a discussion for another time. He tells himself that a lot. He’ll figure this out at some point, when he’s safe and can think. But that’s not how paranoia works and he knows if he keeps this up he’ll never get around to figuring it out.

Morgan is going over her notes and gives them to him so he can write out the questions. They’ve got a system and come hell or high water, that system is in place. He writes out her questions. He’s the keeper of the goals. He knows what they want to know next.

“You okay?” she asks as they’re sitting in the bus to the next place, Bucky doesn’t even know where they’re going, he hasn’t had the capacity to pay attention. He nods, busy trying to counter the hops and sways of the vehicle to write legibly.

“You could’ve stayed outside, you know?” Bucky closes his notebook. That’s a thing about Morgan he’s noticed quickly, mainly because he knows it from Steve. There is no avoiding discussions with her. Even when he manages to delay them or segway away from then, she’ll always come back to them. And Morgan is patient when it comes to this. So he’s a little surprised when it come up this early.

“No.” It would have driven him crazy and Pepper would have never allowed him alone with Morgan ever again, at least.

“Yes, you could. I would’ve been fine. There was nothing dangerous there.” Bucky smiles, mainly because he doesn’t know how well he has control over what else his face might be doing instead right now.

“That’s easy to say after nothing happened,” he murmurs.

“I can handle myself, Bucky. I’m taking self-defense classes and Happy even bought me a taser. I’m fine on my own.” Bucky tries to remember back to a time when he thought a taser would've been enough and he really can’t. He looks at her, tries to figure out what this is really about. He thinks he knows.

“Morgan, I know you are. I don’t accompany you because I think you’ll get lost or take the wrong bus home. You’re smarter than anyone I know, I know you’ll be fine on your own.” When he says that her face grows softer, less like Pepper and more like Stark. They get to their stop and Morgan drags him out of the bus. They’re in the middle of goddamn nowhere and the only ones on the bus stop.

“Then why are you always there? Mom is always busy with things, you’ve got to be too.” He smiles and they get walking, Bucky following Morgan as she leads the way because that’s where he’s happy being.

“Because I like you,” he says and that makes her giggle. “Also you’re crazy smart and it's amazing hanging out with you. You’ll be up there with Princess Shuri one of these days.” Morgan blushes and Bucky uses it as encouragement to say the last part, the one he’s not sure she knows yet. “And you’re my favourite person I know. And I don’t want anything to happen to you. Also, your mother has threatened me with worse than death if anything ever does, so there’s that,” he jokes and he’s again not really sure if it’s really joke. Pepper might just do that. The woman is made of iron and unlike her husband she doesn’t need armour to exercise that.

“She doesn’t really mean it though,” Morgan says as if she’s read his mind. His face. He just hopes she never learns how to read lies well enough. He’ll be in trouble then.

“Not so sure about that.” Again, it's a joke, they both laugh, but it’s tense and Bucky knows this will come back.

Their next stop is a pretty house in a suburb. Bucky likes suburbs. They’re spacious enough to fight and crowded enough to hide and run. He scans the street they’re on, the porch, and much like a suburb should be, there’s nothing to be found. Morgan rings a bell and eyes him up and down while they wait.

“You’ll have to wait outside for this one though.” Bucky looks at her, thinks of the discussion they just had. “Don’t look at me like that, I know you can hear me just fine when I’m inside. It’s just… Doctor Mahr is a psychiatrist, and I want to explain first…”

“I’ll be here,” he interrupts her, the decision was made for him really. Morgan smiles because this is what she wanted and is worried because she got it this easily.

“I’ll be back quickly,” she tries to ease his worry and Bucky takes up lying again. Relaxes and smiles. Eases the muscles down his back and around his lungs. Stands like he’s waiting for the bus.

“Take your time. I’ll be around.” And the he isn’t because there’s steps coming towards the door and when the door opens and a woman with wild red hair opens, Morgan is the only one on the porch. The woman smiles and it’s a kind smile, a normal smile, one that reeks of suburbs.

“You must be Morgan.” Then they’re both gone.

Bucky settles against the wall to the next garden, watching the house through the leaves of the bush he’s hiding in, like a fucking kid and then again so much better. He listens to the house, listens to the dampened voices inside. The words he can’t make out. Morgan’s laughter. Then her seriousness. No ten year old has any business being this serious. And Bucky can’t help but smile.

Because they’ve seen professionals before, they’ve had appointments with experts where Morgan could ask her little heart out. But it’s never been for him. About him. Natalia would hate this, Bucky thinks. She hates the spotlight. Bucky does too, but he’s sick of Hydra ruling his life. So sometimes, he’ll let the light hit him, just a little, not very long, but long enough to benefit. Because he can see that this can help. He can see that Morgan is trying, trying hard, and he’s trying hard too to give her as much to work with as he can.

For the next two hours Bucky enjoys the garden and does all manner of exercises that he never does when he’s having an attack. He slowly raises himself out of his meditative breathing when he hears the voices inside begin to sound like goodbye and when steps approach the door.

The door opens and he tenses, gets ready for something, he doesn’t even know what. Morgan and Mahr step outside. Shake hands. And then Morgan walks over the porch to the sidewalk while Mahr closes the door. One part of his brain calls him paranoid as he makes his way to the sidewalk unseen. The other says better safe than sorry. He doesn’t know which side is right and he hates that.


	14. Pepper Potts

By the end of the day Bucky is utterly exhausted. Morgan doesn’t tell him what they talked about, doesn’t show him her notes.

“We’ll talk about that tomorrow. You’re done for today.” And although he sort of agrees, he also wants the bandaid off. But changing Morgan’s mind is about as easy as moving a mountain, so he doesn’t even try. They get off the bus and start walking the way from the station to home when Morgan decides that never mind, he isn’t done yet.

“Can you tell me about your nightmares sometime, Bucky. And if you tell me they’re gone I will hit you.” Bucky smiles and hopes Morgan never learns how to threaten someone from Pepper.

“I said I’d tell you when the motorbike is done,” he says and because they’re on their own again, surrounded by trees and silence he can speak quietly again, doesn’t have to raise his voice to meet the world. Morgan stares at him, first in disbelief, then in anger, because this right here is their project right now and he never stops her projects, he helps her, he doesn’t slow her down. But then her anger melts because she realizes before he ever can what this is. That he’s scared and that agreeing to this in the first place is already more than he could ever do. That he’s trying to help, as much as he can make himself, but that there’s only so much protection and deflection he can give up on any day.

“Okay,” she says instead and there it is again, that  _ bring it on _ grin. “We’ll fix your bike.”

They don’t. Not that day at least. Morgan has a friend over today, a girl that’s planning to go to the same high school as Morgan and Bucky excuses himself when the girl arrives. Goes and hides behind the workshop. Because god he’s so fucking tired.

He lets himself sink against the wall, close his eyes and just let his mind go blank for a moment. He doesn’t realize how tense he’s been all day until he sits down and he wants to sit here and not move for the rest of the day.

“Off duty?” A voice comes around the corner and Pepper follows. Bucky tenses up immediately, there goes his moment of rest. He should sleep tonight. He knows he probably won't.

“Anna is here,” he offers as an explanation and Pepper nods.

“They’re outside, the living room is safe,” she smiles and then she’s gone again. Leaves it up to him whether he wants to come or not. He doesn’t really. He needs a break, his heart is tired and sick of being nervous and on edge, he wants to go home and just rest. But he knows this isn’t it yet. So he takes a moment to breathe. Then he gets up.

The living room is indeed empty when he gets there and he just lets himself fall into his designated spot on the couch. He lets the fabric wrap around him, pull him down and he’s almost ready to let go of being careful, to let go of the constant alarm of his senses. But he doesn’t. He’s tired and his senses are hyperactive and when he hears Pepper close the door to her office, he’s awake immediately.

“So, how was your trip to the museum?” Pepper asks casually and collects two wine glasses from the kitchen. He guesses she’s also done for today.

“Fun. Not my best field, but Morgan got a lot out of it,” he says and it doesn’t even feel like lying. He knows even Friday won’t be able to pick this up. He’s at his best. Tired and exhausted and just wants to go home, but still at his best. Or worst. He doesn’t know. Pepper smiles, and it’s not for him, but for Morgan, for the little picture of Morgan having fun. He knows that, he does it often enough himself, so he doesn’t mind.

“You know, I’m glad you support her like this,” Pepper comes out of nowhere and Bucky readies himself to have that important a conversation, because he’s not ready. “I just don’t have the time to be with her as much as I want to, and I’m glad you can do that for her.” For a moment he entertains the idea of leaving it there, of taking the complement and proceeding as usual. But today is all shit anyway, he’s been a wreck since last night, so he might as well drive it home.

“I don’t think that’s true.” Pepper is still smiling, her brows furrow a little.

“What?”

“I don’t think you’re glad that it’s me.” He doesn’t say it with malice or with hurt because there is none. He’s only here because Morgan wants him to be, otherwise he’d have removed himself all the shadows he brings with him from her life years ago. Pepper drops her smile and looks at him. Sees that this is open, not accusing. Drinks.

“Of course I wish it was Rhodey. Not the assassin that murdered Tony’s parents.” That stings, hurts, but Bucky lets it. He expects worse from Pepper, much worse.

“That makes two of us,” he murmurs and Pepper looks at him in surprise. He laughs. God she has no idea. “Pepper, I know who I am. I know what I am. Nobody wants me around their kids, least of all me.”

“And I thought it made you happy, being her little pet,” Pepper says and that’s more what he was waiting for. That hurts. That strikes somewhere deep and hard and he knows when he looks back there tonight it will still be bleeding. But he’s not mad, not at Pepper. She doesn’t know the last person that called him pet. She doesn’t know the way he can feel the leather of the chair cut into his arms and torso when she says it like that, the way he’s finding it hard to breathe.

“It does. Morgan is the first person I’ve met since Shuri that actually ever gave a crap.” Because he doesn’t. He knows very well that each of the girls alone care more about him that he does. “But Morgan’s safety comes first. I’m only here because I would never hurt her and can’t think of a way of how someone might make me. As soon as any of that even begins to form as an idea, you’ll never see me again.”

He sighs and sets the glass down. Because he’s just decided something and strangely enough he isn’t scared. Because he has something to fight for, something to protect, and like that, he can handle Pepper. He can handle anyone.

“Pepper, I know you’d rather not have me here. I get that. But Morgan wants me here. And as long as she does, you’ll have to deal with me.” Pepper looks a little shocked, like she wasn’t expecting this honesty and this directness from him. He certainly wasn’t. “I don’t mind if you don’t like me. I mean, I don’t expect you to. That’s reasonable. But that’s not going to keep me away. I’ll follow your rules, your house your rules, but unless Morgan wants me out of her life, I’ll be here.”

He gets up. Leaves the rest of the wine on the couch table. “I’ll go home. Good night,” he smiles and then he’s gone and breathing. Not panicking, not scared, not  _ fuck what did I just do?! _ Just breathing. Walking. Happy. His phone vibrates but he doesn't answer it because he’s just stood up to the world. Nothing can take this from him right now. Not Pepper, not Steve, not Natalia, not anyone. Steve always keeps talking about finding a life, seeing it as a new mission, to find something he’d want to protect, something he’d die for. He knows Steve meant love. Coworkers. A home. But Bucky doesn’t care. He’s found it.

When he gets home and has locked and bolted the door behind him, he does check his phone. It was Pepper. He doesn’t listen to the voice message she left for a while and then he has to because the tension is making him sick.

“Hey, it’s me,” she opens and sounds a little more drunk than when he left her a few hours ago. “Uhm, I just wanted to say that I’m sorry if I made you feel unwelcome. You… you’ve got a good eye for people, Tony said you did and he was right, ‘course he was right. I was worried about you. And your arm, and the thing with Howard and Maria, you know. And Morgan’s friends, I mean, how am I supposed to explain that to parents? That the winter soldier is standing in front of their school to pick up my daughter, no worries, he isn’t here for you.” She chuckles.

“But, uhm… I talked to Morgan. Asked her what she knew. And she knows. Not the details, not that with Tony’s parents, but she knows about Hydra, she knows how old you are and all that. And she said you’re her best friend and that she’s trying to help you right now because you can’t sleep.”

He can hear Pepper tearing up or maybe that’s just him because he fucking is. “So, what I wanted to say is that I’m sorry. That I was wrong. And that you’re welcome in my house, because my daughter loves you and I won't be the one to take that from her. I hope you come by again tomorrow. Morgan asked about the bike.” The message cuts off and his phone shuts off. He’s crying but he’s not hurting anymore. He’s relieved and happy and has just heard the kindest words in his goddamn life. His heart aches with those words and he curls around it against the heater because it’s a fucking beautiful feeling he wants to savour for as long as possible.

“Thank you,” he whispers to no one in particular

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey :)  
> I think this might be the last chapter. I said I was going to stop when I found an ending, I hate stories that drag out and cant find one, and I did.  
> But then again, I did just get my first Winter Soldier Comic today, which heavily features Natascha, so I might just start up from here again with a new story about those two and see how they end up. If you want to read that that is. 
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me so far! I love you all.
> 
> Update:  
> Looks like I was wrong. I read through this again and realised how many threads are still hanging. This ain’t the end yet.


	15. Top Secrets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, turns out that wasn't a good end. I read back on it and had more ideas, so here you go.
> 
> Also, turns out I picked the perfect Winter Soldier comic to start with. Left me looking for part two, realising there was none and then both loving and hating the ending. I love it cause it's a good way to end that story and I hate it cause both Bucky and Natascha deserve happier lives. *Cracks knuckles* so here I go

Whatever work they’d abandoned on the motorbike for some reason or another, it’s now Morgan’s singular obsession. She’s using Friday and Bucky and the programming skills she acquired when they were seeing if there were still bits of Jarvis left lying around the web. Bucky doesn’t even know what hit him.

Sure, he knows Morgan is smart, but he’s always been careful with classifying how smart. He loves her, more than anyone in his life, and he knows that skews his view of the world. But he realizes now that even his unwavering belief in her ability to do anything was grossly underestimating her.

The bike is better than new within a month. Most of that is waiting for parts. Bucky has some of the best and worst time of his life trying to wrestle Morgan away from his bike and to her desk because Pepper wants he to prepare for the new school and the new school year. Everyone knows it’s a lie, Pepper just doesn’t like Morgan working on the bike, but it's easier to prove how fruitless her efforts are than to prove her wrong. So Bucky learns some basic English and maths, finally something he can help with again, and also learns how bad an idea it is to hold Morgan back.

The days when they’re just sitting around waiting for packages to arrive are like sitting next to a bomb with a pressure sensor. Bucky just tries not to breathe too loudly, not remind Morgan he’s existing next to her in case she explodes. She’s got a temper Bucky doesn’t know from either Pepper of Stark, but the ferocity of it sure reminds him of Pepper. But eventually he has an idea.

Morgan is sulking in her room, working through the bikes blueprints with Friday, trying to find ways to improve on the old hardware that she hasn’t found yet. She spares him a glance when he leans in the doorway, but she can read him as well as she can read metaphysical space theory by now, so she can tell he isn’t here because the parts have arrived.

“What?” she eventually asks, after he does nothing but watch her flick holograms around.

“You look miserable,” he notes and she doesn’t, she looks angry, but it’s a way to get this started.

“I’m pissed. If mom let me use her company access that shit would be here already,” she growls and Bucky wants to duck for cover.

“She’ll have her reasons,” he shrugs instead.

“Yeah, the reason being that she doesn’t like you and doesn’t like me helping you.” Bucky always wondered if Morgan would pick up on that. He’s got his answer now. He steps into the lion's den and lets himself drop onto the bed. Or makes it look like that. He sinks into the mattress with controlled precision because he doesn’t want to break anything.

“Speaking of helping me, I wondered if I could ask you a favour.” He’s had that sentence in his brain for a day now. Ever since he came up with the idea he’s been twisting and turning it, polishing it down to the tone in which to say it. Morgan stops messing with the hologram engine and looks at him not looking at her. He’s noticed that and told himself never to use it. Whenever he asks her something, whenever he needs something from her, Morgan stops, totally and completely stops everything and directs all her attention and effort to him. He’s seen versions of that with Pepper and some of her better friends, but it’s never as complete as it is with him.

“What kind of favour?” Morgan is being raised by one of the most ruthless business woman this world has come to know and in sentences like these Bucky remembers that. He smiles.

“A little side project, if you will.” Morgan squints at him in exaggerated suspicion.

“You’re not trying to derail me again, are you? I’ll get the bike fixed and we’ll talk, you don’t get around that, Bucky.” He smiles and wishes it weren’t this true. On the other hand, he can't wait for it.

“No, don’t worry. Just, since we’re doing a lot of waiting, I thought you could maybe have a look at my arm.” He raises the amalgamation of parts that he still can’t bring himself to call his own. The hand and lower half are Shuri’s, replaying what Starks blast shattered in Siberia. The upper part is Hydra and Zola and Russia. It makes him recoil, but the arm just comes with him. He doesn’t try to lie, doesn’t try to keep all that from his face. He knows what project they’re really working on, so when moments like this happens, he tries to let Morgan see them. Because he knows Morgan can help. The little Stark can help him.

“It’s been acting up a little lately, I don’t know why. Figured you might.” He tries to smile and it doesn’t come out well because he’s scared and nervous and he really just wants this thing off him, but he needs it to help carry books. Morgan sits up and all the anger has faded off her face. There’s a little worry there, but mostly it’s what Bucky was hoping for. Curiosity. Burning insatiable curiosity that has her eyes glued to the gleaming metal and her brain racing with where to start.

Twenty minutes later Morgan has figured out how to unlatch the panels, Bucky’s arm is bare and making him sick and the bike is temporarily forgotten. Morgan soon loses interest in the Wakandan half of the technology, says she doesn’t get it and has Friday remind her to contact the Panther Princess. The Hydra half however fascinates her. She’s mumbling to herself and Friday deciphers it and makes notes while Bucky just sits there, waiting for the pain. He’s been through maintenance after every mission and he knows it comes eventually. So he just tries to get a grip of himself so he won’t scare Morgan and won't break anything.

“Uhm, Bucky,” she eventually gets his attention. Bucky stops trying to control his breathing and looks up. Morgan is still immersed in the wires but she’s stopped. “There’s a thing here, I think it might be the problem.” She says it in a way that tells him she knows it's the problem, she’s unsure about something else.

“Okay,” he says carefully and only when she looks up does he realized he’s still scared, still bracing. “Can you fix it?”

“Everything alright?” She ignores his question, ignores the tools in her hands and the mechanical wonder in front of her, her gaze glued to his face. Bucky smiles but this isn’t the lie he’s working to maintain so it fails. “Does it hurt?” He shakes his head.

“No, don’t worry. It will later on, but not bad.” Now that is a lie. But it’s not what Morgan is looking at, so she doesn’t see it.

“What do you mean, later on?” Bucky shrugs with one shoulder.

“It always does. Did. I don’t know.” He shuts down, stares ahead. It’s a cue she knows so she doesn’t even try pressing the subject, goes back to the arm. When she speaks again her voice is small, pressed under the weight of the unspoken unwanted memories in the room that she can feel but can’t see.

“So, there’s a frayed wire here. I can fix it easy with some electrical tape for now and it should work just fine.” She’s mostly talking to herself now, they both don’t expect him to answer. She takes the tape and does the thing and when she lifts her head again Bucky’s eyes are closed. He’s breathing deeply, releasing the hold he didn’t realise he’d had on his chest when the constant nagging of a soft pain subsides. He moves his fingers, the only thing still sheathed by the panels and the pain doesn’t come back.

“Thank you,” he whispers and it takes him a second before he can look at her without being afraid that he might cry in relief. Morgans smile is breaking her face and she gets busy putting the panels back.

For the rest of the day, Morgan’s mood is amazing. Bucky goes back to his arm a lot, twisting his hand this way and that, doing all the things that used to reward him with soft pangs of pain, and relishing the feeling of feeling nothing. He can tell in the back of his mind that Morgan is being curiously quiet, but he doesn’t want to worry right now, just lets her.

And from then on, Morgan has all but forgotten about the slow packages. When Bucky goes to the house the next day he meets Pepper in the kitchen. Morgan is nowhere to be found.

“She’s out today. Visiting a friend I think.” It’s curious how little Pepper knows about where Morgan is when she isn’t around him. Bucky tries not to pay that any mind.

“Do you know when she’ll be back?” Pepper smiles apologetically and takes her now filled water glass towards her office.

“She said she'd stay over night.” Then he’s alone in the kitchen. A little disappointed and fighting that he pull out his phone and texts her, asks her if everything is alright as he walks back to the bike. He doesn’t get an answer until he’s home for hours, done with cleaning the place and clearing it out because he doesn’t know where else to direct his energy.

Working on a project with a friend, it’s top secret, sorry. I’ll text you when the bike parts are there.

Bucky tries not to feel hurt. It works sort of well. He’s not Morgan’s only friend and he’s already prepared for her having less time for him as her world expands. So it hurts very little. And he can deal with that.

She does indeed text him that the bike parts have arrived a few days later. He drives over and they work. Nothing has changed, Bucky would know, he’s paying so much attention to her he almost messes up the bike a few times. They joke and laugh and Morgan is as unstoppable as ever. When he asks her where she’s been the last few days she just says she was working on something. Won’t tell him what and he doesn't bother asking. He knows what people sound like when they’re trying to keep a secret.

When they’re done they have dinner together, and when Bucky drives home he doesn’t hear from Morgan for days again. He tries to get used to his time alone, reads a lot, goes running a lot, but he can’t deny there’s a pretty big gap in his life now. His first instinct is to ignore it, to fill it with something, anything else because he doesn’t want his whole life to be off kilter just because of one person. But he stops himself.

He doesn’t want to be alone anymore. He wants Morgan in his life, wants Pepper and Steve and even Natalia in his life as much as they’re willing to be there. And part of that is that sometimes they won't be. Sometimes they won't want to be part of his day, and he has to live with that. Not surgically remove them from his life and pretend like they never existed, move on alone. No he’s done moving on. He’s planted his feet in the ground, his ground, his life, and Morgan is fucking part of that. And if she’s done with that, if she’s done being part of his life, then he will feel the fucking whole she’s left behind.

So he hangs out with Steve more. Considers calling Natalia a few times. And thinks of Morgan a lot. He gets better at letting his thoughts wander in that direction, of letting himself miss her and feel the extra hours of emptiness he now has to work with. He does a little. He works in Steve’s garden a lot under the old man’s supervision. He meets Sam again. Finds a new coffee shop. But he doesn’t frantically try to stuff his day so he won’t feel the hollowness Morgan left him with.

She calls him three more times because of the bike, but it’s the same as the first time and he doesn’t expect anything else, doesn’t address it. She’ll come to him. At least, that’s what he tries to do. Tries to think. But in the end he does text her. He doesn’t know whether to attribute that to weakness of will or because she’s important to him and he’s hurt and worried, but he asks her how she’s doing. If he did anything wrong. If things are going to stay like this. Morgan doesn’t respond. Bucky goes to bed. And answers within seconds when she calls him hours later because he hasn’t slept well or at all for a while now.

"Bucky? Oh shit, I'm sorry, I forgot what time it is! I'm so sorry I woke you up, forget I called." She sounds excited and sorry and like her mind is running from one thing to another, and  _ god _ he's missed it.

"You didn't, don't worry," he murmurs. He's sitting up sideways in bed and watching the square of streetlight highlight a crack in his wall.

"Oh," Morgan stops and he's missed that too. "Is everything okay?" He smiles because Morgan can hear that shit over the phone.

"I'm okay. Just couldn't sleep." He speaks even quieter than usual because the room is so small and bare his voice echoes back a thousand times louder. "How are things going with your top secret project?"

"Pretty well actually. I think I'll be done just in time." A beat passes and he wishes he hadn't texted because she feels bad about how carried away, about how deeply she was entrenched in what she loves. "Uhm, I'm sorry I didn't see you so long," she starts. And one side of him wants to stop her right there, tell her it's all right and that it's okay. But he doesn't. Because he's done running and he's rooted here now. So he can't help but feel that he's hurting and he knows they're about to fix that.

"I've missed you," he admits, not to hurt her or make her feel bad but to explain why he needs this.

"Yeah, me too," she says and her voice is quiet too now. Not that it matters to him, he hears her just fine. "I've been working with some friends, new friends, but it's just not the same."

And right there he's glad he's been listening to that tiny voice that's been learning with her, that's her, that cares for him. Because those words feel good, they stitch up his heart and mend the chasm of doubt and self loathing. Not completely, Bucky's been around too long for that, but enough for it to stop hurting so bad.

"I was worried," he says and he can't bring himself to finish that sentence. Say that he was so fucking scared he'd done something wrong. Scared her off. Hurt her. But Morgan is a smart girl.

"I'm sorry. I didn't want you to worry. I should've said something." She sounds so sorry. And a little scared. Bucky races through his memories, the recent ones, tries to figure out why. And he does. Remembers Sahra and how that friend from elementary was chased away.

"I'm not leaving though. I just wanted to know when you'll be back. Finish the bike." And the other things they've started.

"Uhm, I'm almost done. I think I'll be back home in a few days. I'll text you." She sounds so relieved. Like she really believed that he might be mad at her. Like she really thought he might not come back.

"Okay. And, Morgan?"

"Yeah?"

"I think we should finish the Bike soon." And it's true. He's ready. As ready as he'll ever be. Because he's learned his lesson. He wants to be with people, he's done running, being alone. And he wants to be more than a pitiable wreck for others to tiptoe around. He can be better than that. So he'll try to be that. Morgan makes a choking sound on the other end of the line.

"Okay thanks. Thanks, Bucky. I'll be home soon, promise." And then she hangs up. Bucky smiles. Stares down at his phone for a while. He still doesn't find sleep that night, but it's more like normal now. He's not lying awake doubting and hurting. Hurting himself. He's thinking of nothing in particular and watching the city pulsate around him.


	16. New Friends

Morning :D got back home last night. Happy Birthday!! Want to come over for cake?

 

Bucky reads the text when he wakes up because he slept for once. The vibration of his phone wakes him up, which is good, because his nightmares were just taking a turn towards red room which is where the worst of them live.

Birthday. His brain catches up and he sits up. What? Bucky has forgotten all about that. He's pretty sure he's forgotten when his birthday even is. But when Morgan says it’s today it’s today. It’s the kind of thing she’s right about. Bucky wonders how old he is. Really, not in years. Counting years he’s a hundred and something. He wonders if he’s hit forty yet. Hell if he’s hit thirty yet. Hydra never had him out of the ice for that long.

He calls Steve and leaves him a voice message, telling him today’s gardening is cancelled. He’s got a birthday party to attend. He gets dressed and pays a little more attention than usual, picking clean clothes and a blue shirt because Morgan likes that one.

He’s there fast and when he gets off his bike and walks down the path to the house he realises he hasn’t texted Morgan that he’d come. But that thought is wiped from his head when he picks up the voices coming from the house. Morgan’s and two that shouldn’t be there. He can hear Shuri laugh and his heart plummets because the last time he saw her he lied to her face so well nobody could pick it up and then proceeded to sneak out of the house she’d offered him safety in. The other voice takes him a second to recognize and he gets sick when he recognizes it as the kid from the airport. Starks kid. Fuck.

The voices hush and Bucky feels like it’s day one again, feels like running. And just like that day, it’s Morgan that changes his mind. She opens the door to the porch and comes towards him. He can’t leave now. But Morgan did this for him, so he relaxes, grins and wanders towards her as if he couldn’t hear anything at all.

“Hey,” she grins and Bucky decides that he’ll walk through hell for that smile.

“Hey.” He doesn’t know what else to say. She’s the one with the plan, so he lets her lead, trusts her. Morgan is practically bouncing with excitement and Bucky grows curious as to why.

“So, I wanted to say sorry again for just leaving and not telling you, that was mean and I’m sorry if I hurt you.” She dampens her excitement a little to say that and it sounds like she’s been thinking that sentence for days now.

“Come here,” he murmurs and pulls her into a hug because he needs it right now and because he needs the time to think of something to say. He doesn’t come up with anything. He wants to be honest, he wants to explain, but it doesn’t seem right right now, not when Morgan is practically exploding. So he lets her go and she’s glowing.

“I just couldn’t tell you because I was making a present for you.” Bucky is taken aback and knows even less what to do.

“For me?” Morgan nods furiously.

“It’s your birthday, isn’t it? So I figured I’d see if I could get it done in time. I got some help and together we made it.”

“Help?” God, he needs to get out of this. His head is frozen, his mind refusing to even approach the idea of a present from Morgan. He thinks back to the letter in his back pocket. Morgan’s smile dims a little and a thought passes her mind like a cloud. She looks up at him and is all grown up worry and care and concern.

“Yeah, I needed help and I couldn’t ask you for help with your own present, you know?” He nods and says nothing because this isn’t what she wants to get to.

“I also kind of invited them over. Without asking. Is that bad?” Bucky wants to beat himself up for not blindly trusting her. Because now she’s doubting herself and he hates that, hates doing that.

“I’m not sure. Shuri might be a little mad because I never said goodbye to her when I left. And the other one I don’t know. He might not like me,” he tries to explain and Morgan listens as if he’s saying the most important things in the world and nods gravely.

“Okay, so Shuri is a little mad. Well, not mad, but she said she’d punch you when you got there. I think that was a joke though. I don’t know, I don’t know her that well so I sometimes can’t tell if it’s a joke. And Peter wants to meet you. He only heard Dad talk about you and he said you sound super interesting but also really dangerous. I told him you’re not though, I told him all the dangerous in you was other people who are dead now so that you can be just you.”

Morgan rambles away and Bucky watches his worry and fear melt away like ice in the sun. He takes her hand, he hasn’t done that in years because she’s too old for that, her words, not his.

“I think I’ll be okay. I’m really happy you got me a present, so I happy I don’t really know how to say it.” Morgan talks like that. Less and less, now that she’s growing older, but whenever she wears her heart on her sleeve she talks like that and when Bucky wants to wear his heart on his sleeve he does too because he doesn’t know how else.

Morgan beams and drags him towards the house. Shuri and the kid, Peter, step onto the porch now as well and Bucky watches Peter carefully, watches to see how much Stark really told him. Which turns out to have been a mistake.

Shuri’s blow hits him full on in the stomach and the teeth of her panther gloves dig themselves into his skin. He gets catapulted several feet backwards and flipped in the air in the way he hasn’t been for years now. But his instincts and training are so deep in his bones not even Thanos got them out of there and he lands on his feet, his metal fingers digging into the ground to bring him to a skidding halt, his other hand grabbing for a knife that isn’t there.

He gets a hold of himself quickly and rises to get showered in laughter. Both Shuri and Peter are losing it, Morgan is staring at him, her mouth and eyes wide open. Bucky takes a second to realize that she is amazed. He doesn’t know what to do about that, so he turns his attention to Shuri and joins in her laughter. That hurts with the forming bruise on his abdomen, but he knows so much worse.

“And that’s for leaving without even telling me, White Wolf,” she quips when he gets back on the porch. Bucky grins.

“Sorry about that. But you wouldn’t have let me go.”

“Not like that, no. This idiot was living with us and when I offer to bring him to New York, give him some stuff to get him started, he says no, he’ll stay some more. Next morning, gone. Like a ghost.” Bucky thinks of Natalia and then tries not to. Peter is hanging on Shuri’s lips and glances over at him incredulously when she mentions the declined tech. And even more so when she says that he just left.

“And you didn’t notice? Not at all?” Shuri shrugs and Bucky is glad she’s not hurt that he managed to beat her security systems.

“The idiot lied to my face in my lab without anything picking it up. They don’t call him the Ghost for nothing.” Peter now looks just as impressed as Morgan does.

“Uhm, sorry,” he suddenly stumbles and stretches out a hand towards him. Right. They haven’t actually met. “I’m Peter Parker. Spiderman. We sorta met at the airport.” Bucky nods and smiles, pretty damn well too, because the kid is tenser than he is. But he quickly learns that’s not because of him. Peter has a natural tension to his body, like a rubber band ready to be snapped in any random direction at any moment.

“You stole Steve’s shield,” Bucky remembers. Peter gets flustered and Bucky gets why Stark liked this kid.

“Yeah, Captain America, Steve, yeah.”

“Bucky Barnes,” Bucky says because it feels appropriate and he wonders what Stark would think about this.

“I know,” Peter breathes and then flushes bright pink. Shuri laughs and Morgan hasn’t quite caught on. Pepper saves Bucky from having to diffuse the situation by opening the door.

“Oh, good, Bucky is here. Come inside or I’ll eat the cake myself, she threatens and suddenly they’re inside, eating cake on the couch and talking about phone brands. It's the only conversation that day where they can all chip in. Because while Bucky just checks out when they start talking specs, he’s had to use a few different phones so far and give his reports on all of them. All three kids laugh at him and Bucky mentally removes himself from the conversation, busies himself with some math.

“Okay, so presents?” Peter’s voice snaps him out of some existential dread and he wishes immediately he were back there. Peter looks around the room for a cue and Shuri grins like she’s up to something. Which she is. Because it’s Shuri.

Peter goes first. He says he didn’t know what to get so he got him a gift card. It’s for a doughnut shop. It says for Mr. Barnes, his name written in a different handwriting to everything else above a black bar just long enough to hide Peter. Below it say _don’t tell aunt may._ Bucky catches on pretty quickly. He looks up at Peter and Peter is staring at the gift card.

“I wasn’t going to use it anyway,” he says and sounds so haunted. Bucky smiles and says thank you and slips the card back into Peter’s pocket later during the evening.

Shuri goes next. “Lighten up, kids. I’ve got you,” she grins and breaks the tension of the room. The ghost standing between them walks off, back into the garage. Shuri pulls out a small package and hands it to him. Bucky opens it carefully, he knows how to open bombs, and Shuri seems to just be enjoying the show. It’s now a bomb though. Bucky is holding a dog collar between wrapping paper. He looks at the small tag. It says James. Bucky looks up, confused, because Shuri may love pranks and may not be annoying, but he knows she doesn’t hurt him.

“I think you look like a man that owns a dog, doesn’t he?” She confers with Peter who gets pulled into the joke and also has no idea what's going on. Peter eyes him and nods.

“Yeah, sure.”

“See? And because you’re Bucky, your dog should be James.” Peter laughs, so does Morgan, Shuri has been giggling at her own joke the whole time anyways and even Bucky has to laugh.

“The last person to call me James was my mom,” he informs them and it doesn’t help. Shuri gets even less air than before.

“To summon you to dinner!”

That’s the scene that Pepper walks into, a little confused but smiling because they are.

“Bucky is getting a dog!” Morgan announces and a look of dread at what that means crosses her face for a moment. Bucky decides to check in with her on that later.

“Doesn’t mean we are,” she informs Morgan and then finds his gaze. She’s holding a small box and hands it over to him. It’s elegant like everything about Pepper and inside there’s a key. Bucky wonders for a second and catches as soon as Pepper starts talking again.

“It’s a spare key. It only works for the back door though,” she informs him. Bucky closes the box carefully and tries to show as much of the fucking gratitude coursing through him on his face as he can.

“Thank you,” he says quietly and when Pepper smiles, not quickly, but really smiles, he thinks she gets how much this means.

“Finish the cake,” is all she says, softly, like she too doesn’t want to break the moment, then she leaves again. Bucky waits until she is gone, the he opens the box again. Just to make sure that it’s still there. Closes it and holds on to it.

“Does that mean you live here now?” Morgan asks, leaning onto him as she too is looking at the key. Bucky is trying not to tear up.

“A little,” he says and quickly glances around. Morgan is leaning against him, not making any attempts at sitting up again, curling up as good as she can now that she’s so much bigger. Shuri is smiling like she’s happy for him, not mad for lying and leaving, just happy. And Peter is looking at them like he’s just realizes something, like he’s just understood something for the first time.

The Morgan jerks up and them all out of the moment.

“My turn, my gift now.” Shuri and Peter exchange glances and they too start to look nervous. Morgan jumps off the couch and runs up to her room where he hasn’t been allowed for weeks now. She runs back down immediately with a large box almost tipping her off balance with every step and drops the box onto the couch table. She takes a breath and then turns to him, beaming. Bucky glances at Shuri and Peter, looking for guidance on what to expect, getting nothing.

“Okay, so remember when I fixed your arm?” She doesn’t wait for him to respond and just rambles on, speaking so fast he’d find it hard to keep up with her if he weren’t used to it. It’s how she talks when she’s explaining the newest thing she found, when she’s telling him about Okapi or how hunger works or what altitude does to the body. It’s a voice he can fall in love with.

“So, when I did that I had Friday do a scan to figure out how it works. And it was really weird because Shuri build half or it and Nazis the other half and they didn’t work together really well. Well, Shuris half worked, really well, but the Nazi half didn’t really catch up to that. And it was wearing down and breaking and all. So I figured I’d send the scan to Shuri to ask what else I could fix with what I had and Shuri sent me really long emails I didn’t understand and then mom said I should go call Peter because he’s really smart too and he’s studying this, so he’s really good at it.” Bucky looks at Peter, impressed, and Peter looks embarrassed and proud.

“And then I had this crazy idea, because Peter works with biology and stuff and Shuri does like super fancy mechanics, like we did with the bike but infinitely better, so I thought we could all build a new arm together. A one piece arm that works together and doesn’t break down because it’s eighty years old.” Morgan ends her rant and beams at him, expecting a reaction.

Bucky doesn’t know how to react. His brain is empty, stuck somewhere and he doesn’t even know where.

“So you built me a new arm?” He speaks slowly, his words doing their thing without his brain because that’s still stunned. He feels the weight of the metal on his left suddenly, feels how heavy he is and for the first time in forever he becomes aware of the constant tugging and pulling, the constant waves of soft pain that course through the point where metal and flesh connect.

Morgan nods, again expecting him to say more. He looks back to Peter who refers him to Shuri who takes pity on him.

“T'challa didn’t let me back when you were with us, he said if what you had could be salvaged I should do that. He didn’t want vibranium on someone that could become an enemy.” She says it factually and that’s his favourite way of hearing that. Without pity or worry or any of those emotions he has no experience dealing with. Facts he knows.

“Smart move,” he comments and Shuri shrugs.

“I made the mechanics and Peter helped me with the connecting part. All of that,” she says and points at the Hydra fused to his body, making him recoil. “That can come off. It’s an easy change, we modeled the new arm to dock with the old nerve extensions and....” Bucky interrupts her.

“You mean you can change it now?” Peter takes over and his voice is soft and Bucky wonders how much of this he understands. How much of this did he and Stark talk about.

“Morgan said she didn’t want any ports. She wanted to give you an arm for your birthday, not an operation.” And that’s how Bucky’s gaze finds its way back home to Morgan again. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what to do with this much _thank you_ inside of him. So he lets go of whatever he was holding on to and lets the tears run down his face. Takes her hands.

“Thank you,” he whispers and smiles and it feels so weird to smile while you’re crying. Morgan watches him, tries to makes something of him crying and smiling.

“So do you want it on?” Bucky laughs and rubs his eyes, not to too much effect.

“Morgan, I want anything you ever do. This is the most amazing gift and this might by my best birthday.” That makes her smile cautiously and then properly when he manages to get a hold of himself properly.

“Then let's do it,” Shuri takes charge and gets up. “Peter, grab the arm, Morgan, grab the crying fossil.” Bucky laughs again and it helps. Peter takes the arm and he and Shuri are outside while Bucky is still holding Morgan in place.

“We need to go outside. Peter says the nerve connections are bad, it might hurt. And that you’re super strong and that we should do it outside so that nothing breaks.” Bucky nods. Doesn’t let go.

“Okay. But I need to tell you something first. Just you.” He can tell Morgan doesn’t want to let the other two wait but Bucky couldn’t care less about them now.

“I’ve had a crazy life,” he starts because he wants his word to mean something for once, he wants them to carry what’s in his chest for once. “I’ve met some amazing people. I’ve met your dad, who made the most amazing armour in the world in a cave. I met Captain America, as a kid and as a hero. I met super spies and kings, a princess and a wizard. I’ve seen aliens. Hell, I’ve seen time travelers.” Morgan chuckles with him, but she’s nervous, doesn’t know what he’s getting at.

“And the most amazing person I’ve ever met, ever gotten to know is right in front of me.” She grins and wants to hide her blushing face but he holds on to her because he means it and he isn’t done. He needs her to understand.

“You’re crazy smart Morgan. You think now that Shuri is smart and that Peter is. And they are. But you’ll be up there with them sooner than you can look around. Nothing can stop you, you know? You’ll be unstoppable.” Again she laughs. Likes the sound of that.

“And most of all, Morgan, you’ve got a beautiful heart. You take care of your mom and she doesn’t even know it. And you take care of me. You have me here and keep me here. It takes an extraordinary heart to do that, because I know I’m not always nice and not always easy. I can’t always help you with what you want. And you’ve got the most beautiful heart and soul because you try to understand. I hope you keep that. I hope you realize how rare and how precious that is.” Morgan hugs him.

“Thank you.” Bucky knows she doesn’t quite understand everything he just said. But he also knows that Friday recorded it and that Morgan can listen to it whenever she wants to.

“Now let's go outside. Try out your present,” he whispers into her hair.


	17. Got a secret, can you keep it?

Bucky takes a moment to let the sun hit him, admits to himself that he’s scared. Shuri and Peter are standing on the grass, the metal arm limply hanging between them like a dead animal. It doesn’t look too different from what he has now, it’s all silver, plates shielding the no doubts unfathomably complex wiring inside.

Morgan is holding his hand, which is good because otherwise he’d taken root there on the porch. Morgan softly tugs him forward, onto the bench overlooking the small vegetable garden. She’s holding his hand and doesn’t ever look away while Peter starts explaining something. Bucky doesn't really hear it. He looks at Morgan, looks at her for direction. Morgan smiles and starts counting soundlessly. He watches her face, reads her lips and tries to match his breathing to her numbers.

Somewhere at the edge of his vision he can see Shuri silence Peter and help him tugging away plates and protection. Morgan’s eyes flit over to Shuri for a second, but she immediately comes back to him.

“Shuri is going to disconnect the arm now,” Morgan says softly and Bucky nods. He doesn’t feel anything, but when he reflexively moves his arm nothing happens. That’s okay though. Morgan is calm, and if Morgan is okay everything is fine. Morgan doesn’t watch what’s happening to his left shoulder, just keeps watching his face and counting so he can breathe.

Bucky does feel when the last wire disconnects. He feels the weight gone, suddenly feels off balance. Almost falls, overcorrects and then finally catches himself. And he closes his eyes.  _ Oh god. _

With the last wire, the pain stops. Bucky hasn’t realized how much the old hardware hurt for a long time. Hasn’t realized how crudely the arm was built. How little Zola cared about him when he made it. He touches his collar bone, feels towards his shoulder and tries to breathe. Because for the first time in he can’t even remember how long, he’s without pain. He tries not to cry again, but the he stops caring what Shuri will say or think and just give in.

Morgan gives him a moment, gives him the time to fully feel what’s not there anymore, then she touches his shoulder and makes him look up. She doesn’t look worried. Smiles.

“Everything okay?” Bucky can only nod, he’s busy breathing, fully using the expand of his ribcage because he finally doesn’t have to hold on so tightly anymore. “Then we’ll attach the other arm. That might hurt, but just a little when the electricity calibrates to the nerves. Is that okay?” Bucky nods again. Drops his other hand onto the bench to hold on.

“Yeah, sure.” Because it is. Nothing these kids can do will hurt him. Can hurt him.

The pain is short and sharp, blinding white shooting through his spine and skull and leaving him panting. It’s nothing, really nothing, but he’s still so glad he has the two seconds afterwards to recover.

“Bucky! Are you okay! Does it hurt?” Bucky opens his eyes and finds Morgan no longer looking at him but at his right hand. The one currently dug into the wood of the bench, bleeding with splinters.

“Oh, shit. Sorry,” he mumbles and pries his fingers off the wood. Morgan takes his hand, inspecting it, resting her other hand on the new arm and Bucky fucking jumps. Whatever nagging pain there was in his hand, whatever blood had him mildly concerned to eventually find some gauzes and bandages, it’s all wiped from his mind.

Morgan touched him. And he felt it. Not just the pressure against his shoulder, but he felt her touch on the metal.

“Oh yeah, that’s a thing we added when…” Peter starts explaining but Bucky doesn’t listen. He’s standing there, staring at Morgan. And Morgan is beaming. She’s outshining the fucking sun with her smile, fucking giddy with joy as he finally realizes the full extend of what she managed to do. What she did for him.

Bucky lifts is new arm. At the edge of his minds marvels and wants to cry at how smoothly it moves, at how light it is and how easy it moves. He touches his fingertips to each other and jolts back when he can feel not only the pressure, but also the slick metal texture, the coldness of it. He realizes he can feel the soft breeze coming from the river, not just on his face and in his hair, but also on his arm. He can feel the metal gliding smoothly over the fabric of his shirt.

Peter has once again realized that Bucky doesn’t have the capacity to listen right now and has stopped talking. All three of them watch as Bucky slowly lifts both arms, and practically painlessly removes one of the splinters in his right hand. Because he can feel the pressure now. Can feel the texture. The angle. He looks back up. At three beaming faces, Morgan’s shining so bright Bucky wants to hold that moment forever.

“I don’t know how to thank you for this,” he says when he finds his voice again. It’s raw and coarse and Morgan’s face melts into a little softer smile. She steps around the damaged bench and picks up his right hand again. Inspects it and looks back up at him.

“You always help me carry my books. You don’t need to thank me.”

 

They leave Bucky to grapple with the reality of what just happened on the porch and go up to Morgan’s room. Bucky can hear them chatter, if he wanted to he could even know what they were talking about. But that’s the last thing on his mind right now.

The hyper sensitivity is over after an hour and Bucky is in awe at how quickly the human brain adapts to new inputs. He just walks around, touching the world. He feels the nature around him, is amazed at how different it is to touch bark and leaves and grass and earth with skin and with metal. Eventually he ends up sitting on the porch and just feels his hands with each other.

When Pepper joins him just when he’s finally ready to feel human instead of thankful again. Pepper smiles at the new arm, smiles at how his fingers are tracing the lines of the metal plates in his palm, his fingers twitching at the touch. So she was in on it too.

“Your daughter is amazing,” Bucky murmurs, his voice still not quite back to normal, still rough because fuck he shouldn’t be saying anything but thankful. He thinks amazing is a gross understatement and wants to find better words to capture Morgan. He doubts he’ll find those though.

Pepper nods into the sun and draws a knee up to her chest. She looks relaxed, happy even. Bucky is glad he notices that. He’s hoped so bad for Pepper to figure out how to be that again.

“I don’t think Shuri and Peter will be leaving anytime soon,” she notes and Bucky listens and shakes his head, laughing.

“No, they’re not. I think they might stay for a while.” They’re both not talking about the party, both thinking of all the friends that left this house to never come back. Morgan might have finally met her match. Well, not her match, but people that will understand.

“How old are you now? Morgan wanted to put candles on the cake and didn’t know how many. I told her there wasn’t space for a hundred candles, and she said that wasn’t your real age.” Bucky chuckles nervously and focuses on his hand, not on what he’s saying.

“Did the math earlier. I’m thirty. Isch.” Pepper coughs and it takes her a while to settle back down into her chair.

“Wow.” That’s all they say about it. They don’t talk about the thoughts sitting between them. They don’t talk about how young that is. How much pain and shit he’s seen in so little time. They don’t ask if he’s okay. They don’t think about it. Pepper doesn’t because she can’t even wrap her head around the fact that the man next to her is almost two decades younger than her. And Bucky doesn’t because that realisation already made him feel sick when he had it on the couch and right now there is so much more and so many better things to think about.

 

The rest of the party is labeled by Shuri as a snoozefest. She stays anyway and has way more fun that she’ll ever admit to anyone. Shuri has fun with everyone and Morgan for now still seems intimidated by her new friends’ titles and achievements. Bucky watches and tries to remember as much of it as possible because he’ll get to tease her with that in a few years time. 

Peter is polite and clumsy, catching everything he knocks over before it can so much as topple. He’s intensely interested in Bucky but doesn’t express that beyond blushing whenever Bucky catches him watching him. He doesn’t really mind, because he trusts Stark and therefore trusts Peter. Both Shuri and Peter are here to stay, Bucky knows that just by the pure admiration in Morgan’s eyes, and he knows Peter will come to him when he’s ready.

Morgan entertains them both, talking and bringing down more and more books and notes and having Friday show off projects and notes and ideas. Most of it is above Bucky’s head, no matter how often Morgan mentions him in her ramblings. But he can’t help but notice that both Peter and Shuri are impressed. They both look from the holograms and books to the kid that's ten years younger than them and are impressed by how much Morgan knows, by how broad her field of interest is.

Bucky just watches that in amusement. He doesn’t mind the focus on Morgan at all, he’s glad for it. He needs all the time he can get for himself. The new sensations coming from his left side make him jump all night. It’s surreal and he spends most of the night in disbelief. Shuri eventually finds her way next to him, Peter and Morgan somewhere in the house trying to find a tiny airplane model that's over a year old. She plops onto the couch next to him while he has his eyes closed, focusing of the sensation of metal over fabric as his new fingers trace a seam of the couch.

“You know, I’m happy you left,” she announces and Bucky opens his eyes. They’re both looking down at the metal catching the light from the lamps.

“Me too.” An absolute truth. He likes Shuri, a lot, and he liked living with her, but he’s glad for every decision in his life that lead him here.

“And crap, that little Stark is sharp.”  Bucky smiles fondly and listens to Morgan tell Peter about the flight museum he took her to before returning to the conversation he’s actually part of.

“Yeah, she’s pretty scary.”

“How do you even keep up?” Bucky grins.

“I don’t. I just write down questions and carry books.” Shuri laughs and Bucky appreciates that she’s such a relaxed person. And that she also has a sense for sincerity, but only when absolutely necessary. “I’m glad she found you and Peter, you can keep up with her at least.”

“Aw, scared you’re being replaced, old man?”

“I’m younger than your brother, Shuri,” Bucky quips, sharing the revelation he had earlier. “And no.” He pauses to think, feel inside him a little, feel the impact of the last few weeks. “Well, maybe. But if that’s the case, I’m okay with it. I won’t be the one to hold her back.” Shuri looks at him as if she’s seeing something she hasn’t before and Bucky wonders what it is. Because Shuri knows him pretty damn well.

“No, I don’t think we’ll be rid of you anytime soon. We’ll need test subjects after all,” she grins deviously, and Bucky smiles. Shuri says what she means when she’s saying something nice. But he knows her pretty damn well too and he hears the message. He’ll be around. Sure, he won’t keep up with the new trio, he’ll sit by and gawk in awe and what those three can put together. But he’ll be around. Because that’s where Morgan wants him. And because it’s where he wants to be. And to them, that matters.

 

Shuri and Peter get to sleep over in the guest bedroom. They go there around midnight arguing over who gets the bed, leaving Pepper, Morgan and Bucky behind. Pepper takes Bucky’s new hand and inspects it for the first time that night to, watching how he reacts to her touch and how Morgan is just radiating pride.

“Good work, cupcake,” she says and kisses Morgan on the head. “Don’t stay up too long.” Then she’s also gone, leaving just the two of them. Morgan curls up next to him, pulling his metal arm around her the way she always does and Bucky has to focus on breathing so hard. His breath comes out in ragged shudders. He feels her warmth, feels the texture of her shirt and of her jeans. He can feel the soft touch of her hand on his and the way her body moves to fit next to his. It’s overwhelming and Morgan gives him the time to get used to it.

**** “Does it work? I hope it’s not too different.” Bucky smiles breathlessly and looks down at her.

“It’s perfect. I never thought I’d be so happy to have dropped down that ravine.” And as he says it it becomes true. His life after that was hell and he wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy, wouldn’t wish that on Zola, hell, even Thanos. But it got him here. Got him to realize that he’s not just a tag along, not just a pet following a new master. No, he’s found friends. The kind of friends he’d die for. And more importantly, the type of friend he’d do everything not to die for.

“Mom always said that Dad also liked to fix things,” Morgan murmurs and Bucky watches her, follows her gaze to the picture of Tony that has started gracing the living room a few months ago. It’s of him and Morgan in a park and he looks as genuinely happy as Bucky feels. He has an idea. Looks back at Morgan and wonders if it’s a good one.

“Morgan, can you keep secrets?” Because he can. And he knows she can too, but this is a pretty damn important one. But his trust in Morgan is unshakable, and he trusts her to move mountains. Morgan looks up and wonders where this is going.

“Sure I can. I’ve got secrets I never told anyone.” Bucky raises an eyebrow.

“Like what?” Morgan grins.

“Well, if I told you I wouldn’t have kept the secret.” Bucky nods. Looks around conspiratorially.

“Come on, can’t have Friday tell this to Pepper,” he whispers in her ear and then lets her climb on his back because he’s the only one still strong enough to carry her like that. Morgan giggles into his ear and he feels the warmth from her leg seeping into the metal. This is fucking crazy. But Bucky has become a creature of momentum, he’ll let it catch him and carry him wherever it leads. Because he knows he can handle wherever it ends. The question now is if Morgan can.

He puts her down in front of the garage and Morgan is confused. The garage is still off limits.

“We’re not allowed to go into the garage,” she informs him even though that’s been the rule since day one.

“I know. But the secret I want to show you is in there.” He leaves it up to Morgan. Whether she will be enticed by the secret or respect her mother's grief. He’s fine with it either way.

“Then how do you know that it’s in there? We’re not allowed in the garage.” Bucky pulls out the lockpicks and Morgan stares at him with a little disbelief and a little curiosity.

“I was panicking, I wasn’t thinking straight,” he tries to explain. If she wants to condemn him he’ll let her, but he’s past just letting her jump to conclusions without offering at least a little explanation. Not defend, just explain. “And breaking locks is something to focus on. I opened it and I was scared so I went inside. I didn’t mean to. I know Pepper said no. But it just happened.”

Morgan stares at him and Bucky tries to soothe his boiling anxiety. Morgan has always protected the people she loves fiercely, whether that’s her father from allegations that he was a weapons producing egotistical maniac, her mother because she didn’t want any part in that discussion or Bucky himself because some people cling to his past even more than he does. It’s gotten her in a lot of trouble he got to get her out of, and now he’s on the other side of that wrath.

But in the end her expression softens. She glances over her shoulder, to where Peppers bedroom window is dark. She turns back to him.

“But just once. Mom will start crying again if she finds out.” Bucky nods and he’s so fucking happy and proud of himself because Morgan trusts him like this. She trusts that he isn’t doing this to hurt Pepper, that he doesn’t want to hurt Pepper.

“Just tonight,” he promises. Then he cracks the lock within seconds because it's second nature. Still crouching he turns back to Morgan. “Now, I need you to wait outside for a second. Not long. I’ll call you inside. Okay?”

Morgan is still sceptical, but she nods because just like he trust her she does too. She waits on the edge of the door as he steps into the darkness of the garage. It’s still comfortable, being alone in the dark like that. He wonders if that’s still Hydra’s programming or if that’s just him now. After a heartbeat alone in the dark, Friday’s voice announces “Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes detected. Initiating Legacy Protocol.” The lights flare up and Stark appears, standing between Bucky and Morgan.


	18. On the Shoulders of a Giant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter, and this time really the last one.

“You’re back,” the hologram comments. “Come for a chat?” Bucky looks past him at Morgan. Morgan is frozen solid and staring. Stark follows his gaze and turns and the same happens to him. “Oh.” Bucky melts into the shadows and gives them space. 

“Hello cupcake,” Stark whispers and Morgan starts crying. Not sobbing, just silent tears running down her face. Stark immediately runs over to her and crouches in front of her, reaching the limits of his garage confines. “Hey, honey, don’t cry, please.” Morgan nods and Bucky wonders if she’s learned from him how to get a hold of herself on command. She looks past Stark towards the three lights radiating to form the hologram.

“You made this?” Her voice is small and quiet and on the verge of tears, but just the verge. And Bucky hears what he hoped for in it. Seeds of curiosity. Of  _ how does this work? _ And that’s when he knows she’ll be okay. Stark nods and can’t stop looking at her.

“You’re so big. How old are you now?” Morgan sniffles and smiles.

“Ten,” she announces proudly. “Can’t you check the date?” Stark shakes his head.

“Nope, that’s Friday. I’ve got no connection to the internet, to anything. It’s just me.” Morgan gets that look when she’s figuring something out and watches as her hand passes through her dad’s chest.

“What is this?”

“The Legacy Protocol,” Stark answers and sounds absent minded, too lost in how his daughter has changed and grown. “Figured I’d save as much of me as possible in case something happens.” Morgan nods and keeps poking her hand through various places in her dad’s image. Stark watches her for a beat. “And, how are you doing, cupcake?” He looks past her into the garden where the moon is illuminating the vegetable patch. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“I know, but it’s Bucky’s birthday and Mom said I could stay up.” Stark gets up and leans against a workbench, patting the empty spot next to him. Morgan takes the invitation readily and climbs up on the workbench, letting her legs dangel.

“Bucky’s birthday, huh?” Morgan nods as if this was normal, as if there was nothing extraordinary about talking to your dead dad’s hologram.

“I had Friday look it up. I was working on a new arm for him and got it done just in time,” she beams and Bucky realizes he can feel again.

“A new arm. And you made that all on your own?” Morgan shakes her head.

“No, I got Shuri and Peter to help me. They’re both really smart and made it much better. Peter and Shuri even made it so that he can feel with it now, like with a normal hand.” Stark looks over at where Bucky is hiding, glances at the gleaming metal.

“That’s… wow. That’s pretty impressive.” And that’s all it takes to get Morgan talking again. She talks about how they worked on the arm Bucky is wearing, she talks about museums and about the Bike. She tells Stark about all the things she’s planned for just the next few weeks and talks and talks and talks. Stark listens in silent awe for a while, but soon enough he starts chipping in, giving ideas and tips and places to look for better resources. They build on each other and Bucky just watches Morgan interact with the hologram as if Thanos had never happened. It fucking hurts because he wishes Stark could be here for this, he wishes Stark could be real and could see what a fucking marvel his little girl is.

They talk for hours and Bucky accepts that he’ll get shit from Pepper tomorrow for letting Morgan stay up this long. He’s just happy because Morgan is happy and hurt because Stark doesn’t get to be that or see this. He’s happy in his corner, listens and feels things with his new arm. Waits for Morgan to tire out.

It takes much longer than usual and Bucky really doesn’t mind. He’s good at waiting and these are some of the best hours he’s ever spent. But eventually Morgan slows down and starts yawning more and more. Bucky does nothing until Stark looks back over at the corner where he’s been forgotten, giving him his cue. Bucky gets up and walks over to Morgan, rubs her back and gently wakes her a little.

“Come on, let’s get you to bed.” Morgan’s head snaps to the hologram, but Stark smiles reassuringly.

“I’ll be here tomorrow. Really, as long as you don’t burn me out of Friday, the home network and our hard drives, I’ll be here whenever you need me.” Only then does Morgan allow Bucky to pick her up and falls asleep on his back. Bucky makes sure he’s got Morgan, then he looks back at Stark. The hologram is smiling, smiling the way Stark is smiling on the photo in the living room.

“She’s amazing,” he whispers because he knows even Stark can’t find words right now. Morgan can be overwhelming like that. Stark nods.

“Yeah.”

“Stick around this time. She’ll be back. I mean, I try, but I can’t help her with most things anymore.” Stark looks away from Morgan’s sleeping face and looks at him.

“If you leave her because you think you’re not useful, I’ll rewrite my code, get out of here and beat your ass.” Bucky chuckles.

“Why does everyone keep thinking they need to threaten me to do that? Stark, your daughter is the best person in my life right now.” Stark nods, fatherly duties fulfilled.

“Good. At least you know that. Now get her to bed and break the bones of anyone who dares to hurt my baby.” Bucky nods and grins and takes Morgan to bed. The hologram flickers and dies when they step out of the garage. Bucky closes and locks the door behind them. Tomorrow he’ll have to teach her lockpicking. He chuckled. Oh, that’s a bad idea.

He does it anyway. Morgan keeps the secret to herself, even though she confides in him that she’ll tell Peter and Shuri eventually. Once they’ve proven themselves. Bucky doesn’t quite know what she means by that, but he figures as long as she does that’s fine by him.

They go back to fixing the bike, although there’s not much left to do. Eventually the pop the last bit of cover back into place and Morgan gives him a second to admire the fruits of their labour before dragging him towards the bike. She picks a destination in the new inbuilt, Friday run navigation system and Bucky recognizes it as the campus of the university Peter is studying at.

“We’ll talk later,” she threatens and he really really doesn’t mind. He packs Morgan in helmet and leather gear, fastening the glowing triangle that contains the nanosuit onto her chest. Only then does he allow her to climb onto the bike behind him.

Bucky’s never driven this carefully in his life. Morgan is laughing into the wind behind him, her arm tight around his waist. Bucky is so fucking happy it’s going to burst his chest.

He has no idea where they’re going, no idea what Morgan’s plan is, but he doesn’t really mind. Because where she leads, he’ll follow because he knows it’ll be something great. She’s smart and learns so fucking fast Bucky can’t even imagine what crazy things they’ll be working on when she’s out of highschool. It’s a little scary, but she has allies, she has him, Shuri and Peter, and she now has Stark. What’s left of him. Wherever they’re heading, it will be grand and great because Morgan will get to stand on the shoulders of giants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There, that's better.
> 
> Thank you so much Sreya for getting me here, thanks to all of you wonderful people who commented and read and made it a bloody joy to get here.  
> I'll get to work on Bucky and Natascha sometime soon, but for that I'll need some more reference material. I've already got the start down, so lets see where that goes.
> 
> Love you all.


End file.
